Disabled People

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, for her important debate, which I am pleased to take part in. I also warmly congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London on her inspiring maiden speech.

I shall talk about the challenges that deaf children face in education. There are more than 50,000 deaf children in the UK, but it is what is sometimes called a low-incidence disability, meaning that many parents and teachers will come across a deaf child only occasionally. Indeed, more than 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents who have no prior experience of deafness. Around 80% of deaf children attend mainstream schools, where they may be the only deaf child enrolled. It is because deafness is a low-incidence disability that local authority specialist education services for deaf children play such an important role. These services employ teams of teachers of the deaf who can work flexibly and go where the need is. In particular, they can ensure that families and teachers have the specialist advice and support they need so that deaf children can develop good language and communication skills.

The National Deaf Children’s Society has raised with me a number of concerns about the future of these services. First, there is concern about the impact that funding cuts are having. Its analysis has found that over a third of local authorities are planning to cut funding for specialist education services for deaf children. These cuts amount to £4 million in these areas. It has told me of its frustration that the Government continue to maintain that funding is at a record high. This may be so, but it does not allow for funding pressures on local authorities also being at a record high. For example, we are seeing a growing number of children with special educational needs and disabilities, many of whom need a placement at a special school. I hope the Minister will take away the message that there is a need to do more to ensure that funding is adequate, both now and in light of the Government’s spending review next year.

Secondly, there is concern about the sharp decline in the number of teachers of the deaf. Research shows a 14% decline over the past seven years. Many services report that they cannot recruit new teachers of the deaf. It seems clear that there are systemic challenges around how teachers of the deaf are trained and recruited. I would be grateful if the Minister could let me know of any plans to address this. Will the Government consider introducing a bursary scheme, for example, to fund the training costs of new teachers of the deaf?

On a related note, I understand that the Department for Education has commissioned a review into teachers of the deaf qualifications. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that this review will look at the totality of the work of teachers of the deaf, including with families in the early years. I would also be grateful if she could confirm that families will have an opportunity to feed their views into this review.

Thirdly, there is a concern about how local authorities are held to account for the quality of these specialist education services. It seems unfair to many that parents of deaf children receive so little information about the quality of the support their child receives. Ofsted inspections of local area provision for children with special educational needs, introduced in 2016, have started to address this. However, the National Deaf Children’s Society advised that these inspections do not look at services for deaf children, or indeed for any other group of disabled children, in any great detail. Will the Minister agree to look at ways of addressing all these things, perhaps by introducing new ad hoc inspections that look at different services for disabled children?

I conclude by saying again that specialist education services for deaf children play a vital role. A failure to protect these services will put the future of deaf children at risk. I very much hope the Minister will respond positively and constructively to the concerns I have raised.