Oral Answers to Questions

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the financial sustainability of school budgets.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for schools.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

Congratulations on your 10 years in office, Mr Speaker.

We are spending £43.5 billion on schools this year, but we recognise the budgeting challenges that schools face and will continue to listen to teachers, to help us to inform decisions about future funding. As we prepare for the spending review, the Government are determined to ensure that schools have the resources they need to deliver high-quality education and that our reforms continue to drive up education standards.

[Bambos Charalambous]

I thank the Minister for meeting me and local headteachers from my Enfield, Southgate constituency last week. I know that he gets the problems with school funding, but I do not believe that the Chancellor does. Will the Minister join me in demanding more funding for schools from the Chancellor?

[Nick Gibb]

It was a real pleasure to meet all the headteachers to whom the hon. Gentleman introduced me on Wednesday, including Kate Baptiste, the headteacher at St Monica’s Primary School, where 78% of pupils achieve at least the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. That is way above the national average of 64%. In fact, all the headteachers were from schools with high standards. We had a constructive discussion about the challenges that those heads face in respect of school funding, and we will take all those challenges on board, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, as we prepare for the spending review and our discussions with the Treasury.

School Funding

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Our schools are facing a crisis in funding, and unless immediate action is taken, irreversible damage will be done to our children’s education. In the Westminster Hall debate on school funding on 4 March, the Minister for School Standards regaled us with how much money the Government had given to schools on a per-pupil basis and suggested that the Department for Education helps schools to make savings on non-staffing spend and advertising vacancies, but this fundamentally fails to understand the problem.

The Minister is ignoring the hard facts that schools face on the ground. The additional costs that schools are facing for energy, increases in national insurance contributions, pension obligations, pay rises and the apprenticeship levy—the last four are directly the effect of Government policy—mean that any additional funding schools may receive goes nowhere near covering what schools have had taken from them. It is like pouring a cup of water into a bucket having previously drilled three large holes in the bottom. In addition, the new school funding formula means that some schools are losing out, and if the Minister does not believe me, he should listen to the headteachers.

Kate Baptiste, headteacher of St Monica’s Catholic Primary School in my constituency, told me:

“we are currently facing a deficit of just over £130,000. This is going to mean drastic cuts to staffing...We will lose support staff as well. This in turn will affect standards…High needs funding is also dire. We do not receive the full funding for children with an Education, Health and Care Plan...we do not receive the first £6,000 for each plan...”

At St Michael at Bowes Church of England Junior School in my constituency—the school I attended as a child and where I am a governor—headteacher Maria Jay and the governors are looking at making changes to the school day because the dedicated schools grant has not increased, and per-pupil funding has not increased in line with inflation. There have also been significant increases in pension and national insurance contributions.

The National Education Union has provided me with statistics from the Department for Education that show that the annual funding shortfall for schools in Enfield Southgate between 2015-2016 and 2018-2019 was £4,154,554, or a 7% cut. It is not only schools in my constituency that are affected. Two headteachers from schools in Hertfordshire also contacted me about school funding cuts in their area. Gillian Langan, headteacher of Abel Smith School, and Justine Page, headteacher of St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School in Hertford, contacted me and said:

“In spite of the persistent and heroic efforts of school staff, these are desperate times and the funding crisis means that children’s needs are no longer being met. Delivering an intense, academic National Curriculum at a time when teacher recruitment and retention is in crisis has undermined children’s mental health and exploited children with special educational needs. This critical issue cannot be resolved without giving headteachers adequate funding that is ring fenced so that it goes directly into the classroom to provide urgently needed human and practical resources e.g. teachers, support staff and modern technology.”

In research published last week, the Sutton Trust found that 69% of schools had to cut staff to save money, and that is on top of the fact that the UK is facing a major issue with teacher recruitment and retention. Teach First’s report, “Britain at a crossroads: what will it take to provide the teachers our children need?” states that currently one teacher is leaving the profession for every one that joins. We cannot afford to cut the numbers of the teachers we have. It is estimated that we will need an extra 47,000 secondary teachers and 8,000 primary teachers by 2024, just to maintain current pupil-teacher ratios. Teachers in more disadvantaged areas are over 70% more likely to leave than those in affluent areas. Between 2017 and 2027, the number of secondary school pupils is expected to grow by 15%, which means there will be 418,000 pupils in secondary schools by 2027. Unless more substantial investment goes into our schools, and soon, our school education system will fall apart.

Schools must have the resources to be modern workplaces that continue to develop employees throughout their careers, while allowing life beyond work. A vital part of that will be reducing overall workload, and paying teachers a salary that reflects their efforts, qualifications, and role in preparing the coming generations for life beyond school. In conclusion, I ask the Minister to look at the facts, and to meet me and headteachers from my local schools and go through their budgets. He should see with his own eyes the scale of the problem faced by schools, and take the urgent action needed to stop this crisis and fix the holes in the bucket.

School Funding

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist]

I will carry on a little.

Of course, it is not just primary schools that are feeling the strain; our secondary schools face real funding problems. Steve Haigh, head of Whickham School, says:

“The more pressure on my budget, the more class sizes have had to increase. We started a national petition to tell the Government that these cuts can’t go on, because children in Gateshead and across England deserve better. Headteachers are facing impossible choices. They care deeply about the whole of their communities—children, parents and staff. When choices are made to cut deeply in areas of need, making staff redundant and cutting the support for vulnerable young people, hard won gains are at risk, and effort and sacrifices made over the last decade may be thrown away if schools are not adequately funded. I stand proud with my community for our successes and I feel every cut I have to make—well concealed, painfully made, shamefully felt.”

I agree with Mr Haigh, who does excellent work in our local secondary school, especially in supporting pupils’ mental health.

Let us not forget the impact on children with special educational needs, who are also losing out because of the pressure on school budgets. Joanne, a parent, wrote to me:

“I am writing to express my serious concerns about school funding. I have an 11-year-old son and a 9-year-old girl in primary school. A regular topic of conversation in our house is how disgusting the school toilets are. It’s not that they are not cleaned; they are so old and dilapidated they are beyond looking nice. There is no spare money to replace them, nor has there been for many years. My son has autism, and during his whole school life he has never received the one-to-one support to which he has always been entitled, due to funding. My daughter regularly runs straight to the loo after school, after holding it in all day rather than use the toilets. I cannot fault the school, they try their very best at all times. Isn’t it the job of Parliament to do better for our children, our next generation?”

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

One school in my constituency is looking at more than £1 million of cuts by 2020-21. That will mean that it will not be able to afford any learning support assistants, teaching assistants, office staff or site staff. As children with special needs need one-to-one support from learning assistants, does my hon. Friend agree that school cuts will disproportionately affect them?

[Liz Twist]

Yes, I most certainly agree with my hon. Friend.

Social Mobility: North-west

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jo Platt]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that really important point. He is absolutely right about the support that is out there for communities such as ours. Later, I will talk about what we can do to come together to make this issue work for places such as Leigh and St Helens North.

We have been left isolated from our booming cities, without the tools to remedy our situation. There is no doubt that the talent and aspiration are there. I am often struck by the energy and determination of our young people, who are desperate to get on in life and succeed, and by the passion of our incredible community leaders such as Peter Rowlinson and Elizabeth Costello in the Leigh Film Society, who work relentlessly to put Leigh on the map. Without outside help and meaningful plans for inclusive growth, towns like Leigh are left feeling helpless.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

I am very lucky to live in a constituency that has very good transport links into London. I was in Manchester at the weekend and had the pleasure of travelling on the trams there. Does my hon. Friend think that greater investment in the transport system would benefit Leigh and overcome the social mobility issues?

[Jo Platt]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that really important point. Again, that is something that I will talk about later in my speech. This is not just about education, but about a whole-system approach, which includes transport. We need to bring it all together.

Let me talk about the pathway of a young person growing up in Leigh and share that experience. The statistics and Ofsted reports show that our school provision is good. We are not letting young people down between five and 16, as they progress through education, but when a young person reaches the stage of deciding their career path, they hit a brick wall. There is no obvious industry to enter as there used to be. We are desperately short of inward business investment, which often comes with the offer of apprenticeships and training. With only one sixth-form college in the constituency, achieving A-levels is difficult. Our young people have to travel out of the constituency to gain decent A-levels. A higher education is even more difficult with no providers at all. Where other constituencies might rely on transport connectivity to access those opportunities, the young people of Leigh cannot. They are brought up in the fifth largest town without a railway station in the country. Those young people are left with the looming question at the end of their mandatory education: “Then what?”

Quite simply, our failure to provide adequate options in answer to that question, which should be at the top of our list of priorities, is an enormous failure of us all as a society. Although I am enormously optimistic that this week’s draft spatial framework in Greater Manchester will explore the options for a railway station in the constituency—I will be working closely with Transport for Greater Manchester on that—we must look at the Government’s broader responsibility to promote and ensure inclusive prosperity. When I look at their response however, I am left asking, “Where is the pathway for local areas to propose local plans? Where are the resources to tackle”—in the words of the Prime Minister—“those ‘burning injustices’? And where is the joined-up strategy across Government needed to tackle such an enormous problem?”

As delighted as I am that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) will respond for the Government, why has it fallen to the Minister of State for Children and Families to respond to an issue in desperate need of a cross-governmental approach? Social mobility needs a whole-Government approach that opens the machinery of government up to local areas. This is not only a children’s or educational issue, as it feeds into our infrastructure needs and our transport connectivity, and it crosses into the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Justice and the Treasury. This truly is a cross-Whitehall task that needs the resources of a cross-Whitehall response.

Too often, token vanity projects from the Government are hailed as the golden bullet for social and economic progress. They include, for example, the creation of the Social Mobility Commission—it went nearly a year without commissioners after they all resigned—the northern powerhouse and HS2. HS2, a prime example, was meant to connect northern communities with London and the south-east—the famous trickle-down model of economic inclusivity. HS2 will cut through the middle of my constituency, however, and offers no connectivity whatsoever. The nearest station to access HS2 will be an hour away for some residents. How does that help our northern communities, which are feeling isolated and held back?

We must also recognise that the Government’s response cannot be blanket across the country, but needs to complement and respond to plans drawn up locally with the input of the community, and in Leigh we took the first step last year. I recognised that our towns face unique challenges, so I organised the first Leigh social mobility roundtable, where the local council, schools, businesses, community organisations and stakeholders were all invited to discuss our situation, what can be done and what needs to be changed to help everyone in Leigh to succeed.

As I am sure the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown)—to whom I am grateful for attending our roundtable—would agree, what quickly became apparent is that without Government support for local plans or the devolution of investment and infrastructure decisions, towns such as Leigh will never be connected to the educational and employment opportunities in nearby cities or their thriving economies. Put simply, without a railway line and with such poor road infrastructure, which already struggles to cope with our daily pressures, how will constituents access educational and retraining opportunities outside the town, and why would businesses decide to invest in our towns? The people of Leigh have been left in this never-ending cycle of limited employment, low pay and restricted opportunities to upskill or retrain.

To us, Leigh is a beautiful place to live and bring up a family; a place with rich culture and heritage, near to both Manchester and Liverpool. But we have seen our town transformed from the thriving powerhouse of the industrial revolution to a place left feeling isolated and held back; a place that no longer offers the opportunities that it once did. For the first time, the next generation may not see fulfilled the promise of a better life than the generation before them. That sad reality underlines the importance and urgency of taking action to leave our community on a better footing than when we found it.

I therefore urge the Minister to review the approach that the Government take, recognise the importance of locally produced models and commit to empowering and entrusting our communities with the investment decisions that have such a heavy impact on their lives.

Children in Need: Adulthood

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) on securing this important debate.

The transition from childhood to adulthood is sometimes very difficult and confusing for some young people. It is hard enough when those changes occur in a typical, safe, loving family environment, but when they occur for children who are identified as in need of extra support, extra help is sometimes needed. The choices made by young people aged 16 and 17 are very important and can have a profound effect on their lives. Even when they have extra support, it is still a challenging time for them. Children also reach maturity at different times, so it is of great concern that 16 and 17-year-olds who are referred to children’s services and receive support see it disappear overnight when they reach 18. We know that vulnerable children left to fend for themselves become vulnerable adults who struggle to thrive.

The true scale of how many children require help into adulthood is not known. Research by the Children’s Society suggests that, in adolescence, 31% of all young people experience vulnerabilities, which are defined as being in poverty, substance abuse, lack of support from their family or having feelings of failure or depression. The research also shows that one in 16 young people aged 16 and 17 experience complex issues in their lives that require their being referred to local authorities for help. It is staggering that one in three of those cases are referred to local authorities by the police.

It is rare for children’s services to transfer cases into adulthood, but the evidence does not suggest that that is because those young people’s problems go away. In fact, there is clear evidence that unmet need at 16 and 17, and limited transition support, leads to extremely poor outcomes for these young people. The Children’s Society research found that children experiencing vulnerability at 16 and 17, including poor health, poverty, caring responsibilities and feelings of uselessness, are up to two and half times more likely to be not in education, employment or training at 18 or 19.

Homelessness seems to be much more prevalent among former children in need, with research suggesting that as high as 12% of former children in need become homeless. Those who were either in care or receiving support as children are also significantly over-represented in the prison population.

What can the Government do? First, I recommend that support should not stop as vulnerable children turn 18. Their needs do not disappear as they leave childhood. The Government’s review into provision for children in care needs to be widened, encompassing the transition into adulthood. This needs urgent attention. The Government should use that review to address how the education, housing, health and employment needs of vulnerable young people’s transitioning to adulthood will be met. Savage cuts to local authority budgets mean that local councils struggle to provide help in all but the most serious cases. That review must look at how funding can be provided to councils, so that they can give appropriate support to vulnerable young people.

Transition planning for children in need should be made a statutory requirement for vulnerable children moving into adulthood. Young people need clear information and co-ordinated support to deal with the vulnerabilities that they have been identified as having. Similarly, all children referred to children’s services should not be dismissed without an assessment of their needs, including a focus on risks, mental health needs and risk of poverty.

It costs more than £30,000 to keep someone locked up in prison. I invite the Government to invest in children’s support services now, to secure a prosperous future not only for children but for themselves.

Forced Adoption in the UK

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

One can only imagine the stress and heartache that many women face when giving a child up for adoption. For virtually all women, there is an everlasting sense of loss that remains with them throughout their lives and guilt about giving up their child to an unknown future because they are unable to look after their baby. Thankfully, there are support agencies and charities that people can turn to for advice about parenting and adoption. We are also fortunate enough to live in a country where raising a child as a single parent is not taboo and is generally accepted by society. Unfortunately, this was not always the case.

In post-world war two society, there was a moral backlash against women who were pregnant, with some women being thrown out of their parents’ homes for bringing so-called shame and disgrace on them. Social workers and others in authority were not necessarily helpful in counteracting those attitudes, and adoption was pushed on young pregnant women as the only sensible option for them. Pregnant women were then sent to mother and baby homes run by religious or state organisations that made the pain and suffering worse. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) so eloquently described, this is where the suffering took place and where the forced adoption happened. They were not advised about things like the National Assistance Act 1948, which was introduced by the Government to help those who were destitute and thus could have helped them. Nor were they advised of any other benefits they could have sought to help them to find a way through the difficult situation they were in.

One such woman was my constituent, Jean Robertson-Molloy, who is present here today and was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). Jean reluctantly had to give up her baby in the 1950s, having been pressured to do so, and her daughter was sent to be adopted in New Zealand. Jean spent years of anguish and guilt wondering what had happened to her daughter and what sort of a person she was developing into. It is hard to know whether this is what inspired Jean to become a social worker, but she dedicated her life to helping others. She was eventually reunited with her daughter, so that story had a happy ending. However, the adoption seriously affected her life and that of her daughter, who felt the same as many children who have been adopted, wondering why they were given up for adoption and why they were rejected.

Jean, realising that her experience was not unique, decided to help found a group called the Movement for an Adoption Apology. This movement has been actively campaigning over the years. It is seeking an acknowledgement and an apology from the Government in recognition of the fact that the state turned a blind eye to the false adoption scandal, causing a great deal of distress and mental anguish to those affected. On 21 March 2013, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave a full apology, on behalf of the Australian Government, for false adoption. Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach of Ireland has also given such an apology recently.

The Movement for an Adoption Apology is asking the Government to do the same. The harm done over the years by forced adoption cannot be undone by an apology, but an apology would go a long way to comforting those affected. Will the Minister therefore ask the Prime Minister please to make such an apology to the mothers and children affected by false adoption, to tell the full story of the false adoption practice that happened all those decades ago but is still very much an issue for those affected and to provide the support that is so desperately needed, still to this day, by everyone who has been affected by this scandal?

Oral Answers to Questions

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

I congratulate the firm on my hon. Friend’s patch and am delighted it has apprenticeships. The National Apprenticeship Service is there to help at any time.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

On Monday 7 May, one of my constituents was stabbed in a local park. Today, he would have been sitting his GCSEs, but instead he is in an intensive care unit in a London hospital having undergone life-saving surgery. Does the Secretary of State agree that my constituent, having been a victim of a serious knife crime, should not suffer now or in later life as a result of not being awarded GCSE grades, and will he put pressure on the exam boards to allow my constituent to be awarded the grades he was predicted to get?

School Funding

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend makes a crucial point, which relates to the point made by the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield). Taking £1.3 billion from the existing education budget does nothing to mitigate the £2.7 billion of cuts that schools have faced.

Will the Secretary of State tell us how many new schools will now be built by local authorities and how much money will be saved?

The rest of the cuts come from mysterious efficiency savings, which the Secretary of State’s predecessor said would be identified by officials. Have those savings been identified and can he share that information with the House today? Will he admit that the £1.3 billion will not reverse the loss of the £2.7 billion from school budgets, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) reiterated?

Money is not the only factor, but it is hard to escape the reality that the cuts are the fundamental fact of life facing those who run our public services and those who rely on them. Can the Secretary of State tell us exactly how many schools will face a cash-terms cut to their budget in the next year?

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Local parents in my constituency have formed a group called Fair Funding Enfield, which recently contacted schools to see what effect the current funding arrangements are having on them. Of the 59 schools that responded, 49% said they had cut teaching staff, 76% that they had cut teaching assistants, 72% that they had cut learning resources, 32% that they had cut school trips, 95% that the cuts would negatively impact the quality of education being delivered and 42% that they had requested or were considering requesting financial contributions from parents. Does my hon. Friend agree that, despite statements to the contrary from the Government, our schools are in financial crisis and in urgent need of proper funding?

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I commend the work he is doing across his constituency and the work that Fair Funding Enfield and other parents’ groups are doing on this issue. Alongside the unions, such groups have tried to push the issue up the agenda. I also pay tribute to the work of the Select Committee on Education and hon. Members across the House who have raised this issue continuously. I hope that the Government take heed of that today.

British Sign Language: National Curriculum

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Liz Twist]

I agree with my hon. Friend that that is very important.

A pilot GCSE has been trialled and is ready to go, but the DFE is refusing to give it the go-ahead. I ask the Minister to talk to his colleagues in other Departments, and to work with them to agree the GCSE and make it available to students. The absence of a qualification in BSL with the same status as other GCSEs discourages schools from teaching sign language—a view supported by a survey run by an organisation called Signature, which I will talk about shortly.

However, making BSL a national curriculum subject is about more than just exams. It is about the whole young person and ensuring that they are able to play a full part in school activities, get on with their peers and have a full life in school and out of school.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that 23,000 children aged under 15 suffer from deafness? Teaching BSL in schools will increase the inclusion of those children, help others understand what it is to be deaf, and therefore help social cohesion in school for all pupils.

[Liz Twist]

I agree strongly with my hon. Friend’s point. It is really important that deaf children are able to take part fully in the life of the school.

In 2016-17, Signature carried out a survey of more than 2,000 young people, of whom 700 were deaf and 1,400 were hearing, on behalf of the National Deaf Children’s Society youth advisory board, which is made up of young people from across the UK, such as Erin, who believe strongly that there should be more opportunities for young people—deaf or hearing—to learn BSL, which is an officially recognised language in the UK. The survey showed that 91% of young people want to learn sign language, 92% think schools should offer a BSL GCSE, and 97% think BSL should be taught in schools. Their reasons include inclusivity, as doing those things would ensure that deaf people are fully integrated into society and not disadvantaged because others cannot communicate with them effectively; the importance of communication in general; and equality—they likened learning BSL to learning French or Spanish and said that BSL was at least equally important. They thought that being able to use BSL would improve employment prospects, both directly and indirectly, but many did not know of anywhere they could learn it at no or little cost.

I have already mentioned the shortage of qualified teachers of the deaf, but there is a wider shortage. In 2017, the Department for Work and Pensions highlighted that shortages in sign language interpreters have resulted in higher costs for Government programmes such as Access to Work, and have made it harder for deaf people to enter the workplace. A GCSE could lead to more people considering interpreting for deaf people as a career.

I do not want to make this petition downbeat. Some amazing young and older people are getting out there and making the case for BSL and other measures to improve inclusivity. Since this debate was announced, a number of people—not just young people—have contacted me to tell me about the work they are doing. They include Kathy Robinson, who runs Signs for Success, which teaches very young children to sign so they can communicate from their earliest days and do not face the isolation that can come with deafness. She believes that all children—not just those who are deaf—can benefit from learning to sign. People such as Erin and other young people from the National Deaf Children’s Society are out there campaigning on this issue.

As you do these days, I googled Wayne and had a look at his Twitter feed and at the site that he and his friend Lizzy Jay have, on which they sign and sing pop songs—actually, Wayne assures me that he does not sing, because he cannot, but he signs along to pop songs. This debate and this petition are about BSL helping young people to have fun as well as learn. It is not all about serious stuff.

I was contacted by a young constituent from Blaydon— I will not give her name—who told me about her time at school, which was not an easy experience. She is out there pushing for more people to learn BSL. We need to ensure deaf young people have the best possible chance. This petition is one way of ensuring we make progress in this area.

It is about time that some of us MPs had a go at learning BSL. I am sure we could arrange classes in this place. I am sure that is achievable. I will commit to putting my name down to learn, and I know that many other Members will join me.

One of the great things about petitions is that we get a Government response—hon. Members may have seen it on the website—so we know what the Minister may be going to say, although I very much hope he will be much bolder in what he says about the proposal to include BSL in the national curriculum. I am sure other hon. Members will ask him to do the same. Basically, the Government said, “Schools can already teach it. It doesn’t need to be part of the national curriculum. We have no plans to change it.” Well yes, Minister, we know that schools can do it, but those of us who have been teachers, governors or just parents know that the school timetable is already under huge pressure. Without an additional push, in most cases it will not happen. We know from the National Deaf Children’s Society survey that young people are keen and willing to learn BSL, but the Government must help to make it part of the curriculum.

The Government said—a number of people said to me that they took exception to this comment—that BSL is a “useful tool”. It is not just a useful tool; it is an essential part of communicating with the outside world and other people. It is an essential tool for many of our young people, and we should respect that.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister to push the boat out a bit, to respond positively to the request to make BSL part of the national curriculum, and to give our deaf young people the best possible chance.

Autism: Educational Outcomes

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

My hon. Friend is right. These children have not just a right, but a legal right. As the inquiry heard, the most frustrating thing is that existing legislation should be providing for such care in the education system. We have not only the Children and Families Act 2014, but the Autism Act 2009, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) introduced. The 2009 Act, which is the only disability-specific piece of legislation that we have in England, sets out how autistic adults should be supported.

The problem is therefore not that the legislation is not in place, but that it is not being upheld. As the 10-year anniversary of the Autism Act approaches, we need a national autism strategy to help children and young people, to ensure that the current laws are upheld and to make sure that all autistic children receive the help to which they are legally entitled. Without that, we will continue to hear these desperate stories of parents and their children who are not getting the support that they need.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that there is also a need for speech therapists, child psychologists, occupational therapists and other health professionals to support the special needs of those children in being diagnosed with autism in the first place?

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. This is absolutely about not just teachers, but the whole support staff. Our report calls on the Government to introduce a national autism strategy by the end of 2019, which should include training for school staff, the provision of a specialist curriculum for all pupils who need one and measures to reduce bullying and promote inclusion in schools. We also ask for an understanding of autism to be embedded in the education system, and we want ongoing training for teachers, including headteachers.

We are asking local authorities to collect data on children in their areas, because commissioners cannot plan a service if they do not know how many children are in need of it and on what part of the autistic spectrum those children sit. The needs of a high-functioning autistic child are very different from those of a child at the other end of the spectrum, so local authorities need to be collecting data so that they can adequately commission services.

We ask that Ofsted is required to monitor the implementation of the 2014 Act. One of the most striking pieces of evidence we heard in our inquiry was the admission of Ofsted inspectors that they do not always assess how children with autism are supported in schools when they carry out their inspections. If that is not being enforced, it is no wonder that schools are not getting the resources they need to support these children.

We also ask that local authority staff—this point was made in an intervention—as well as teachers receive training about the requirements of the 2014 Act. This is about more than teachers, who know that they need training, because a range of individuals involved in supporting children could also do with such training.

The Secretary of State came to our launch in Parliament last week. My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle has met him since, and I know that my right hon. Friend is supportive of our report’s findings. He has asked us to list the aspects of our report that we could introduce into policy, so we will certainly follow up on that. As a society, we are failing autistic children and their families, and that has a key implication for a huge number of people in our society.

During our inquiry on autism and education in England, we heard that too many families face an uphill struggle to obtain the help and support to which their children are entitled. Children with autism only have one childhood, so there is only one chance of getting it right. The impact of getting it wrong can be far reaching for the rest of their lives. We therefore urge the Government to look carefully at our report, and to develop a national autism and education strategy before the end of 2019 that will support local authorities to become more effective commissioners for children on the autism spectrum and ensure that schools are equipped to ensure that autistic pupils are supported in the way the existing law says they should be. In the words of a suffragette, Emily Wilding Davison, this is about “deeds not words”.