Deaf People: Public Services

Baroness Wilkins Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilkins (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on securing today’s debate on the needs of deaf people in the provision of public services. Parliament is currently giving a flurry of attention to the needs of deaf people. Let us hope that this results in some strong, positive action and that it will achieve real gains. It is so vitally necessary. I am afraid it is inevitable that I will repeat many of the points that have already been made, largely as a result of the excellent briefing given to us by the National Deaf Children’s Society, but I hope that that will only serve to persuade the Minister to respond positively.

Last week Sir Malcolm Bruce, the right honourable Member for Gordon and chair of the All-Party Group on Deafness, led a debate in the other place asking for recognition of the importance of services for deaf children and young people. This followed a petition, signed by more than 50,000 people, calling on the Government to protect the funding for these vital services. Happily, his Motion was accepted, and I hope that this debate will send the same strong signal—that we should protect services for deaf children and young people.

Yesterday in this House we started the scrutiny in Grand Committee of Part 3 of the Children and Families Bill, which deals with special education. The needs of deaf children and young people will be highlighted by a number of the amendments that I and others have tabled. There needs to be considerable movement by the Government if the support for deaf children and young people is to improve. For instance, the Bill currently relies on parents to police the SEN system but does not provide them with any substantive new rights to hold local authorities to account.

It is on the services for deaf children and young people that I will be focusing today. As we have heard, it is of great concern to us that, according to government figures, only 37% of deaf children achieved five good GCSEs last year compared with 69% of children with no identified SEN. Thirty-seven per cent is a dismal and unacceptably low figure—it is shameful. I acknowledge that improvements have been made in this area over the past five years but, when we consider that deafness is not in itself a learning disability, it remains outrageous that the gap between deaf children and other children is still so wide. There is no reason why the majority of deaf children should not achieve the same as other children, provided that they get the right specialist support. But too many deaf children are not getting the specialist support they need.

Worse still, according to evidence collated by the National Deaf Children’s Society, that support is now being cut in many areas. As we have already heard, freedom of information requests to all the local authorities in England have established that 29% of them plan to cut specialist education services for deaf children this year. A further 25% are either at risk of cutting or undertaking a review of their service and these cuts are happening despite the commitment from the Department for Education that it has protected funding for vulnerable learners.

Surely there is more that the department can do to ensure that local authorities do deliver high-quality services and are held to account when they fail to do so. One such action would be to require Ofsted to begin inspecting these vital services for deaf children. When we consider how much scrutiny mainstream teachers and schools are subject to by Ofsted, it is shocking that teachers of the deaf in specialist support services are subject to virtually none. That can only send a signal that deaf education is less important.

When we consider all the competing pressures that local authorities face, it is hardly surprising that the lack of external scrutiny makes it even easier for local authorities to cut services. A sharper eye of scrutiny would also incentivise local authorities to improve services that are inadequate. I am very pleased to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has tabled an amendment to the Children and Families Bill which will address this. I strongly support the amendment and I hope that the Government will give it their strongest possible consideration.

Separately, I am concerned that we need to do more about the recruitment of teachers of the deaf. Teachers of the deaf undergo two years of additional training to gain a mandatory qualification in teaching deaf children. Their important role has been recognised in the new draft SEN code of practice. However, we are recruiting far too few teachers of the deaf if deaf children in the future are to get the support they need. Evidence suggests that around 80% of these teachers are over the age of 50 and, in addition, the number of training departments appears to be reducing. There is also anecdotal evidence that in some areas services are already having to rely on teaching assistants to do the job that would otherwise be done by teachers of the deaf. What steps have the Government taken to assess how many teachers need to be trained as teachers of the deaf to meet future demand and what action is being taken to ensure that they are in place? Does the Minister agree that there needs to be a national recruitment programme?

In last week’s debate, the Children’s Minister referred to the national scholarship fund for teachers’ postgraduate training, which is available to people wishing to train as teachers of the deaf. That is a welcome first step. How many people are currently using this fund to train as teachers of the deaf? Can the Minister reassure me that this fund will be expanded to meet future needs? It is vital that we take action now to ensure that there is an adequate number of teachers of the deaf before it is too late.

I have discussed just two of the areas where action needs to be taken to improve public services for deaf children. I strongly support the points raised by other noble Lords and hope that the Minister will do all she can to persuade the Government to take urgent action. The needs of deaf people have been sidelined for far too long.