Oral Answers to Questions

David Duguid Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Johnston]

We have already begun the reform programme and have just launched the nine change partnerships, which are already starting to make a difference to the provision. I would just say to the hon. Lady that this is yet another area where the Labour party has absolutely no policies whatsoever.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to promote the uptake of higher technical qualifications.

[The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)]

We are revolutionising our skills offering by introducing 172 higher technical qualifications at more than 140 providers at levels 4 and 5. This includes £150 million for providers and £300 million for 21 institutes of technology. I note that the Opposition want to rebadge institutes of technology as technical colleges of excellence. In our view, all our colleges are places of technical excellence.

[David Duguid]

I welcome the Government’s plan to introduce a new advanced British standard to help to remove the artificial divide between technical and academic qualifications. Given that the need for technical skills exists right across the United Kingdom, can my right hon. Friend confirm that this new qualification will live up to its name and be truly British, like the T-level before it, and therefore be available to education settings in Scotland that choose it?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is a champion of science, technology, engineering, maths and skills, and he will know that education is devolved. The devolved Administrations are responsible for their education systems, but the Department for Education is working with the Governments of the UK. We engaged at both official and ministerial level when the advanced British standard was announced. We look forward to continued engagement as it is hopefully adopted across the United Kingdom.

Instrumental Music Tuition

David Duguid Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Ross]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very compelling point. We have to remember that what young people learn at school and through extra-curricular activities outside school at a young age will stay with them throughout their life. They will improve in their music playing and other things during their life, but getting that early introduction is vitally important.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has mentioned the benefits of a child learning a skill and that skill staying with them through adulthood and beyond. Does he agree that there are also social benefits to being part of a school band? I have friends who will be friends for life because they came together with the school band.

[Douglas Ross]

I do agree. I am not sure if my hon. Friend is speaking only about social partnerships and connections that happen in bands at school, because I know that he sometimes plays alongside the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) in MP4, and I am not sure if that bond of friendship continues within MP4.

Speech, Language and Communication Support for Children

David Duguid Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) on securing this important debate on a very important topic. As soon as I became aware of the topic, it reminded me that the subject of speech, language and communication needs—she is right that it is a bit of a mouthful, so I will refer to it as SLCN—is a key factor in supporting patients of a condition that has come to be very close to my heart.

I chair the all-party group on a condition called 22q11.2 deletion syndrome—again, a bit of a mouthful—which is sometimes known as DiGeorge syndrome. For the purposes of this speech, I will refer to the condition by the abbreviation 22q. The genetic condition is not so rare, but it is often misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, and is estimated to affect anything from 1 in 4,000 to 1 in 1,000 births. It is the second most common chromosomal disorder after Down’s syndrome and is often described as “the most common genetic disorder you’ve never heard of”.

In the APPG meeting that I chaired last week, we were fortunate to be joined by clinical experts on the condition from Great Ormond Street, including Dr Debbie Sell, the principal speech and language therapist who specialises in speech disorders associated with cleft lip and palate, which is very common in 22q, along with developmental issues.

As a condition, 22q exemplifies the problems of SLCN. Indeed, speech and language disorders are a hallmark of 22q. Furthermore, given the very high incidence of mental health difficulties in people with 22q, irrespective of communication issues, combining the existing risk with the common existence of SLCN makes the group hugely vulnerable. Maximising their speech and language potential is especially important to their ability to benefit from non-pharmacological mental health interventions. Children with 22q frequently have developmental challenges, with language and speech disorders. Their understanding is often relatively intact, but words and sentences do not come at the expected age.

For example, three to four-year-olds might have only a handful of words and simple phrases. As pre-schoolers, they might need to be taught a gesture or signing system as an alternative means of communication until their verbal language starts to develop. During this period, therapy is essential in addressing attention and listening skills; developing the basic early communication skills of taking turns and making eye contact, much as my hon. Friend described helping parents interpret their child’s non-verbal communication cues and oral attempts; and supporting parents in learning and implementing a gesture system.

Once sounds and simple words start to emerge, therapy changes to developing vocabulary and sentence structure. Speech is often severely unintelligible, with atypical consonant production often associated with a problem with the soft palate or the back of the throat. Some 75% of cases need surgery from cleft lip and palate teams. Surgery to correct the problem is less likely to be successful than the same surgery in children without 22q, and often more than one surgery is required. Although surgery will improve the anatomy in order to speak clearly, speech therapy is still required to eliminate consonant errors. That is not an overnight or easy task and often requires intervention over at least two to three years and often more. Therapists need expert advice on how to correct the abnormal articulatory patterns from the cleft team’s speech and language therapist, collaborating with the community-based SLT.

Unfortunately, we know that access to intervention is often woefully inadequate and becoming more difficult. In 2017, a report on behalf of the clinical reference group for cleft lip and palate for NHS England showed unacceptable inequalities in SLT provision and outcomes across the UK, with large differences in the timing, intensity, regularity and quality of therapy for each child. The “Bercow: Ten Years On” report, which I will refer to later, concluded that therapy provision is a “postcode lottery”, based not on evidence but on costs and demand.

Children do respond to intervention and they can do well in the resolution of their early speech and language difficulties if they can access help. However, persistent expressive language difficulties and impaired abstract language are common in the school-age years. They struggle particularly when the school curriculum starts to become more abstract. Their language skills, involving humour, inferencing and sarcasm can drop off, and their academic skills can drop off too. My constituents who have children who suffer from a range of conditions often find that their frustration increases when their children move from one school year to another, and new teachers have to learn about the condition.

Accessing language therapy at school age is very difficult, and even worse in senior-school settings. The children start to fail educationally just at the time when their mental health issues can kick in. In the 13 months since I was elected to this place, I have had several constituents come to me who are affected by even rarer conditions than 22q, including genetic disorders such as Edwards syndrome, CHARGE syndrome—coloboma, heart defects, atresia choanae, growth retardation, genital abnormalities and ear abnormalities syndrome—and others. In those cases, I, along with the families affected, have been disappointed that clinicians sometimes view those rare cases as the statistical rarity that they represent, rather than treating the person as an individual patient in their own right.

The “Bercow: Ten Years On” report, which has been mentioned, states:

“Poor understanding of and insufficient resourcing for SLCN mean too many children and young people receive inadequate, ineffective and inequitable support, impacting on their educational outcomes, their employability and their mental health”,

as well as leading to an over-representation in the justice system. I, too, support the report’s recommendations, which are highly relevant to children and young people with 22q. It is critical that the Department of Health and Social Care plays its part in taking those recommendations forward.