Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to support children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, I am aware that there have been a number of debates and Questions about education provision recently. I am sure the Minister is also keenly aware of this, especially today. A common theme has emerged that the current provision for supporting children with educational needs and disabilities does not work, with rising numbers, a greater range of need and local authorities unable to fund support. What I find most concerning is that there is a lack of ambition for SEND children. Despite increased levels of funding and higher levels of identification, these are not leading to better educational attainment. We all agree that something must be done, and therefore I make no apologies for bringing this Question for Short Debate to the House to enable us to push the Government on what that something should be.
I refer to my interests as chief executive of Cerebral Palsy Scotland. Cerebral palsy is a good condition to consider in SEND provision. Everyone with CP is affected differently. It is an umbrella term, so the needs and abilities of people with CP will vary tremendously. Some children with complex CP will need intensive input that can be provided only by special schools, often outside the state sector. Even for these children, gaining an EHCP can be challenging and an adversarial process. Once their level of support has been agreed, it is very difficult to change, despite the potential for needs to change as they grow.
Many children with CP do well in mainstream settings. Cerebral palsy always affects mobility, so physical access and ease of moving around a school can become issues. One in two has a learning disability or sensory processing issues, and may also have other conditions such as epilepsy or autism, so there are challenges in identifying what the right support needs to be. I have had many conversations with adults with CP, some of whom attended special schools and some of whom attended mainstream schools. Some had experience of both. There is no right answer, as there are pros and cons for both, but, looking back, many of these adults did not have a positive experience of education in either setting. What illustrates the need for change most poignantly for me is that, too often, education for SEND children is about just getting through the system, from one placement to the next. No one, it seems, ever asks a disabled child what they want to be when they grow up.
In preparation for this debate, I spoke to many people, including staff at Treloar School and College in Hampshire, who provide an amazing education for some of the most profoundly complex physically disabled children. Their college students started a business venture called “Let Me In”, which offers accessibility audits to local businesses to help them improve access and employment opportunities for disabled people. It is the sort of initiative that positively illustrates the Gatsby benchmarks in action. I love it because, while Treloar takes children from the age of four, ambition and preparing students to lead meaningful adult lives, based on what children can do rather than what they cannot, are at the heart of everything from early years provision all the way up to its college students.
Unfortunately, the SEND system is predicated on what children cannot do, not what they can. To qualify for an EHCP, you need a diagnosis of something, hence the rush to find labels for things and, for those who can, to turn to private consultants to get a label for their child. None of this is helpful in supporting the self-esteem of the child, building relationships with parents or identifying what the best support for the child should be. By looking at deficits at the outset, the system is putting up barriers. It is setting out to be adversarial. Would it not be better to think, “Let Me In”? Let us turn the system on its head and be ambitious for these children.
What happens to children as they wait, sometimes for a whole school year or more, for all these assessments and reviews? They are not at school at all; they are missing out on education and falling even further behind their peers. We are not even monitoring this. In an Answer to my Written Question, the Minister confirmed:
“The department does not hold data on how many children with SEND are currently not able to be placed in a suitable school”.
Surely this is something that she could change.
A diagnosis tells you nothing about the impairment level that a person experiences or how a child could learn in a classroom. As a condition such as cerebral palsy—or any other umbrella condition, such as autism—illustrates, a diagnosis in itself is not the be-all and end-all. It can be challenging to distinguish between some conditions and behavioural issues, or between second language issues and dyslexia. Children may have a number of different conditions and needs. Diagnoses have a tendency to skew the figures. We point to the huge rises in social, emotional and mental health needs, and physical disability is often seen as niche.
Not everything requires additional learning support, but currently we are failing too many of those who need it. Some issues, such as home environment or a lack of family support, are beyond the scope of the school to change, let alone the Department for Education. Other issues will be apparent in pre-school years, for which I believe we need a far more cross-sector approach.
Early identification is key, particularly in the realm of speech and language issues. Speech and language therapists play an essential role not only in supporting communication but in identifying cognitive ability and other issues. Given the very high prevalence of speech and language and communication needs among SEND children, the Government must consider how speech and language services are resourced, how specialist therapists are retained, and ensure a sufficient training pipeline.
Fundamentally, barriers to opportunity will be broken down only if all constituent parts work together—schools, parents, health professionals and local councils. I encourage the Minister to look outside the state sector, as independent schools have taken up the baton where often state schools have been unable to. This does not mean one route is better than the other but that we should look at all the education sector to see what is working, support it, and roll it out as widely as we can, not tax it. Involving the independent sector is part of the solution.
If we do not adopt a surplus system rather than a deficit system, we are failing not only SEND children but all our children, as too much resource and time is taken up trying to focus on how we keep this creaking system going. I welcome the announcement in the Budget of an extra £1 billion for high-needs provision and the additional capital funding, but I fear it will be quickly swallowed up, especially when I hear about one mainstream secondary that needs £250,000 to mend a broken lift to enable the school to be accessible. Have the Government set out priorities for this extra funding?
Although ensuring that children can physically get into the classroom is important, so is what they do when they get there. I look forward to the Minister telling us more about the Government’s plans to improve outcomes for SEND children. I assure her that we are here to help and support her. I welcome contributions from other noble Lords and thank them for contributing to this short debate.
Higher Education Reform
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I thank my noble friend and wholly agree with her. It has been a difficult decision to ask students to pay more to safeguard the future of higher education, but I think it was the right decision. On the point about students who are already there, yes, it is the case that the increase in tuition fees will cover students who are already studying. In some ways it is not for the Government to clarify the position. Higher education institutions are autonomous and will need to be clear with their students about the impact on them of the increase in fees. I will correct myself if I am wrong but for most, the assumption would be that the increase in tuition fees will go ahead in the way we have described. My noble friend is right that there is a big differential in those who drop out of university, with more disadvantaged students being more likely to drop out, less likely to continue and less likely to have good outcomes at the end of their time at university. As well as widening access, that is another area where we want to make progress with the sector.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the mother of a third-year undergraduate student at a Scottish university. I support the Government’s determination to break down barriers to opportunity and agree that higher education is central to this. I also welcome the promise of a wider review and hope that despite education being a devolved issue, this Government will carefully consider what influence they can bring to bear to address the now even greater funding gap between universities in Scotland and those in England.
The Minister will be aware of the shameful record of the Scottish Government in promising free tuition but not giving universities the funding to deliver it. But I am also concerned that a consequence of this will be that the brightest and best Scottish students are not able to take advantage of the wider opportunities that are offered within higher education across the whole of the UK. In 2023, Scotland had the lowest Cambridge acceptance rate of any UK region, at just 14.1%. Only 45 students were admitted to the university from the entirety of Scotland, compared with 844 from Greater London. Will the Minister do all that she can to ensure that talented Scottish students are not forgotten?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes an important point about honest policy-making. While sometimes it is politically easy to make extravagant promises, what is important is that you are actually able to deliver them for the good of both students and universities. She makes a strong point there.
The work that we will do alongside universities—and to be fair, this will include universities in Scotland—to broaden access and ensure that students have a successful experience when they get into university will also benefit Scottish students, whether they are studying in Scotland and or at English universities. I very much share the noble Baroness’s objective of ensuring that students can get the very best possibility of the very best university option for them. That is something that I think all of us want to see from the system.
Independent Schools: VAT
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
Have the Government assessed the impact for Scotland? We have a different curriculum, exam structure, term dates, and pay and conditions for teachers. We also have different school starting ages, meaning that this policy could include nursery provision. Special needs are governed by the ASL Scotland Act. A diagnosis is not required to get help. We do not have EHCPs. A co-ordinated support plan is not a direct equivalent, as it is not required to attend a special school or receive additional support.
As education is devolved, the Government cannot reassure us that any income passed to the Scottish Government would be ring-fenced for education. At this moment, the Scottish Government are withholding £145 million from local authorities which is earmarked for education. Councils are making cuts. North Lanarkshire is reducing school bus services. Falkirk Council is considering cutting school hours. Inverclyde Council has said that if it does not receive the funding it will be forced to cut teacher numbers. Question 5 of the Treasury’s consultation asked:
“Does this approach achieve the intended policy aims across all four UK nations?”
Can the Minister tell us what responses to this question have revealed?
Independent Schools: VAT Exemption
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Lexden for his determination to enable us to debate this issue.
The draft Bill which has been published is, to me, a blunt instrument. It treats the sector as a homogenous whole, so causing unintended consequences that implementing the policy in the middle of the school year will not enable us to unravel, let alone resolve. Time is of the essence, not least the limited time that we have to speak today, so I would like to request that the Minister convenes a round table to explore with interested parties the unintended consequences of the current draft legislation in greater depth.
I declare my interest as a former pupil of a specialist vocational performing arts school. I also have a child at a fee-paying independent day school in Scotland and a sister who is a teacher at another.
In the King’s Speech debate, I highlighted my worries about the impact on SEND children. Others have expanded on this, and I support them wholeheartedly. The Local Government Association has called for SEND provision to be reformed; I trust that we can explore this on another day with a little more time.
The first sentence of the Treasury’s technical note published in July states:
“The government is committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity”.
For our performing arts sector, and the schools which provide highly specialist training in music and dance, even the prospect of a VAT levy has created a barrier to opportunities. The schools that deliver training for the Music and Dance Scheme are currently able to offer places on assessment of talent, not ability to pay. This will not be the case if MDS schools have to levy VAT on any part of their fees. I urge the Government to work with the heads of MDS schools to explore the case for their exemption.
Question 5 of the current Treasury consultation asks:
“Does this approach achieve the intended policy aims across all four UK nations?”
I argue that it does not. The education landscape in Scotland is different. We have no academy schools. We have a different curriculum, which in some schools can force children to limit their choices to six subjects at age 14. Thanks to devolution, unlike in England, the Government cannot control how any money raised would be spent in Scotland. That would be a decision for the Scottish Government. There is no guarantee that it would be spent on education. Given the current state of the Scottish Government’s finances, it is likely to be repurposed, like many other programmes, such as the provision of digital devices to pupils. In Scotland, independent schools have been subject to more scrutiny by the Scottish Charity Regulator than any other part of the sector, with regular reviews to ensure that they meet the “charity test”, a process which does not happen south of the border.
The Government’s policy on VAT was announced in the middle of the Scottish school holidays. The allocation of places happens in April each year, but with one in three secondary schools operating at over 90% capacity, there is no space in the Scottish state sector to accommodate even a small proportion of the pupils who may need to move. Schools and families have not had time to prepare. With the changes being introduced midway through the academic year, the disruption for all will be significant. Already, two independent schools in Scotland have closed. I urge the Government to pause the implementation of this policy until the beginning of the 2025 school year and to use that time to explore with us the many complex issues raised today.
King’s Speech
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour and pleasure to follow the wonderful maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Monckton. With her sparkling business experience—bringing Tiffany’s to the UK and her continued involvement in fine jewellery—we are fortunate indeed to have such a gem of a Baroness on our Benches. Much more important and pertinent to our debate today is her experience with Team Domenica and her passion to enable people with learning disabilities to thrive in life and feel included in society, which I know will make such a difference to this House. I know that, like me, noble Lords will look forward to many future contributions from my noble friend.
I add my voice to the congratulations to the new Government, and welcome the new Ministers to their place on the Benches opposite. I sincerely wish them well and will support them if the measures they introduce are
“based upon the principles of security, fairness and opportunity for all”.
I also add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran—who has been at the end of a query or a WhatsApp message whenever—for her openness, diligence and service.
However, I must confess my disappointment that there was not much on adult social care in the gracious Speech. I was on the Adult Social Care Committee of your Lordship’s House, so wonderfully chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. One of our fellow members was the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, who I did not realise was retiring—I wish her a very happy and long retirement. I commend the committee’s report to Ministers. Can they give some serious consideration to how they can support some of the recommendations that do not really need more Bills—for example, by reinforcing the provisions of the Care Act 2014?
I too am concerned by the blanket statement in the gracious Speech about measures being brought forward to remove the exemption from VAT for private school fees. Following on from my noble friend’s speech, can the Minister clarify today that this will not apply to fees that are paid to independent schools for pupils with EHC plans? Even if they are exempt, as my noble friend said, those plans can take many years to be put in place, leaving out children with recognised special educational needs whom the state system cannot support and who currently rely on independent schools. Many of these schools are registered charities, and for generations the provision of education has sat firmly in the definition of “public benefit” for charities. Schools are subject to increased staff costs, pensions, utilities and other inflationary pressures. Even when placements are funded largely by local authorities, significant additional fundraising for these organisations is required to subsidise services—there is no fat in the model.
In Scotland—which I always like to mention—independent schools have been subject to more scrutiny than any other part of the charitable sector. In 2022, the Scottish Government removed business rates tax relief for schools with charitable status. Significantly, they excluded specialist schools for children with educational needs.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, I am really concerned about the devastating impact this policy is having on specialist performing arts schools at this very moment. The Labour Party manifesto committed to
“support children to study a creative or vocational subject”
up to the age of 16. The essential requirement outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, for early specialist performing arts training has been recognised by successive Governments through the Department for Education Music and Dance Scheme for school pupils and the Dance and Drama Award for students. These are means-tested grants that enable talented students to access the best music and dance training at the best specialist schools—I declare an interest as an alumnus of Tring Park, one of the schools on the dance scheme. The majority of pupils at schools such as Tring Park, or the Royal Ballet School, would not otherwise attend an independent school. Yet the Department for Education cannot guarantee the future of any bursaries in either scheme for the next academic year, this September. This uncertainty, together with the fear of being asked to pay VAT on fees, is causing potential pupils to not even take up places, which is an immediate threat to the sustainability of the training pipeline for our world-class performing arts sector.
The Government’s blanket announcement threatens future Darcey Bussells—or indeed Baroness Bulls—and it could force these schools to accept only the children of the very wealthy. Fundraising and full-fee-paying students subsidise bursaries and make it possible to offer talented young people places. Given the Government’s proudly expressed support for the performing arts, I can surmise only that this is an unintended consequence, and I just hope it is something that can be rectified before these schools are forced to take drastic measures.