Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Tuesday 12th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the National Deaf Children’s Society for its support on this amendment.

I said in Committee that the Bill requires improvements if the Government are to meet their ambitions around inclusion for children with SEND. I still feel that very much to be the case. It will also still need improvement if the Government are to reach the target that they have set for 90% of children to achieve expected outcomes in reading, writing and maths by 2030.

In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, rightly highlighted the existing duties of local authorities to ensure that appropriate support is available to meet the needs of children and young people with sensory impairment, as they do for all children with special educational needs. We did not hear in Committee how those local authorities’ duties will fit with the changed educational landscape that the Bill and other changes in the schools White Paper and SEND Green Paper proposes.

Focusing on the flexibility that they have on how they use high-needs funding to meet those needs misses a vital point: around 78% of school-age deaf children are attending mainstream schools, and the vast majority of them do not have an education, health and care plan. The support for these children is not cast in stone in a legally binding EHCP. It is very much coming under local authorities’ general duties under the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND code of practice, for all children with special educational needs who do not meet the criteria for EHCPs. Those children without EHCPs do not automatically receive top-up funding from the high-needs funding allocation. The help that these children receive will be funded by a mix from within the school’s notional SEN budget and outside support services, which are usually provided and funded by the local authority.

With budgets stretched and higher needs funding having to provide for more EHCPs and more specialist claimants, it is this support to mainstream schools which has been cut back and sadly has resulted in them often being totally lacking. For instance, there has been a 17% decline in the number of teachers of the deaf since 2011, a trend which shows no signs of being turned around. We surely need to reverse that trend if the Government are going to meet the aims of inclusion and keep more SEND children in mainstream schools.

I think many will rightly view this new clause as very much part of a wider debate as to how we are going to ensure these services are delivered and who will pay for and provide the specialist roles, such as teachers of the deaf, who support schools, teachers and children. Nothing in the Bill, in the schools White Paper or in the SEND Green Paper protects or enhances these services which are critical for mainstream inclusion. That is why I feel a special duty is required for local authorities and the Secretary of State to ensure there is sufficient funding for specialist educational services for children and young people with sensory impairments.

The Special Educational Consortium supports the amendment because of its concerns about the funding of specialist support services for children and young people with a sensory impairment; 42 organisations have indicated their support for this amendment. The erosion of funding for specialist support services surely needs to be halted and services need to be restored to ensure that children get the support they need to enable them to learn and make good progress. I beg to move my amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely, and I invite her to speak.

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I completely agree with his Amendment 62 on the high needs budget for children with special educational needs. I have signed Amendment 63 in the name of my noble friend Lord Storey, on financial assistance for purposes related to mental health provision in schools, and have laid Amendment 107 in this group on pupils with medical conditions.

I start by thanking the Minister for the various meetings she has held with noble Lords. The fact that this Bill is so heavily contested has required considerable discussion, and I suspect that the stamina of the Minister and her officials has been somewhat tested by a lot of very quick turnaround meetings. The Government have made some concessions, which has also been very helpful.

On Amendment 63, I hope the Minister has something positive to say. In Committee it really was noticeable that almost all parts of your Lordships’ House, Ministers included, agreed that ensuring appropriate mental health support was available for children in schools was vital, especially after the surveys showing that their general mental health condition has worsened as a result of the pandemic. The problem is that mental health support will not appear from any magic money tree, so we argue in this amendment that there must be a duty for the funding of said mental health provision. I look forward to hearing my noble friend Lord Storey’s slightly longer exposition of this amendment.

I turn now to Amendment 107 in my name and signed by my noble friend Lord Addington. It is important to explain why, under Section 100(1) of the Children and Families Act 2014—on the duty to support pupils with medical conditions—we need a duty that

“the appropriate authority for a school must follow the medical advice provided by an individual pupil’s doctor”.

When I raised this in Committee, the Minister replied:

“The department’s statutory guidance on supporting pupils with medical conditions at school is clear that school staff, healthcare professionals and parents should work together to agree the support that a child needs in school to effectively manage their condition and take the best approach. That includes fully considering the advice of healthcare professionals, including doctors.”


She went on:

“We believe the position in the guidance is quite clear that the needs of these children must be met, and it would be useful to talk through some of the specifics where the noble Baroness thinks that might not be happening.”—[Official Report, 20/6/22; col. 64.]


I thank the Minister and her officials for the meeting yesterday morning. We did indeed spend some time debating the different publications of statutory guidance for pupils with medical conditions over the last eight years. I was hoping for a reply from the department following my forwarding of my original version to it, but unfortunately that has not happened.