Special Educational Needs

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

A large number of Members wish to speak, so after the main speech I will straightaway impose a five-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches. People may take their clothes off—within reason.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered SEN support in schools.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, I think for the first time. Before discussing the policy that I wish to address, I will take a moment to emphasise why special educational needs support in schools is such an important topic. I secured the debate because of a number of constituency cases that have come through my surgery. Constituents raised the issue with me and brought me to the point at which I felt the need to discuss it in Westminster Hall. I will not talk specifically about constituency cases, because I want to speak to the wider issue, which affects not just cities such as York but the whole country. That is reflected in the number of Members attending the debate this morning.

I will touch on the importance of SEN and why it is worth taking the time to ensure that the system of support works for all children with SEN. Our starting point should therefore be to see SEN as something that informs mainstream education policy, rather than a specialist area relating to a minority of pupils. More than 1.2 million pupils in England—that is 14.6%—have an identified special educational need, of whom 250,000, or one in five, have either a statement of SEN or an education, health and care plan in place. We should also be conscious of the fact that the SEN of many more students are likely to remain unidentified. For me, that is the wider issue of real concern.

New research by Professor Lucinda Platt at the London School of Economics and Dr Sam Parsons of University College London has helped to inform us about the short, medium and long-term effects on people’s lives of being identified with SEN at school. While the findings are alarming, they serve to underline the obligation on us all to ensure that the next generation of children do not experience their special educational needs as something that impacts negatively on their prospects at school and future life chances.

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[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. Does he agree, on the issue of school budgets, that there is an inequality between schools? The fact that schools are forced to pay for the first 11 hours of meeting an EHCP from their own budgets disadvantages those that do the right thing and take significant numbers of children with special educational needs, and inadvertently helps those that do not. Would it not then be wiser for the Government to agree that EHCPs should be directly funded so that the money followed the pupil entirely, instead of penalising schools that do the right thing?

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. Before you respond, Mr Sturdy, may I just say that if your speech ended now I would, given the number of Members wanting to speak, have to impose a three-minute limit? Perhaps you would bear that in mind.

[Julian Sturdy]

Thank you, Mr Davies. I will try not to take any more interventions, and to bring my remarks to a conclusion, but the point that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) made was the one I wanted to go on to. There is genuine concern that the system provides a perverse incentive to schools not to rigorously identify and protect children with special educational needs. Schools are not provided with straightforward per pupil funding. Rather, a notional proportion of their overall budget is earmarked as SEN funding. Crucially, however, that is not ring-fenced, which means that by identifying more children with SEN, and funding them, schools will allocate up to £6,000 per pupil that they could have spent on other areas. That is exactly the point that the hon. Gentleman made.

Schools have access to additional funding from local authorities for children with especially complex needs, but my concern is the effect that that has on children whose SEN provision schools have to fund in its entirety. Alarmingly, the percentage of pupils with identified SEN but whose needs are not complex enough to qualify for a statement or EHCP reduced from 18.3% in 2010 to 11.7% in 2018, while the proportion with complex needs remained static. I do not want to prejudge the reason for the reduction, but it is certainly dramatic. Surely it reflects not an actual reduction in the number of children with SEN, but rather a reduction in the number who have been identified. In the absence of a proactive approach from schools, parents tell me they have to fund diagnoses for their children privately and are becoming frustrated with schools that are failing to investigate their concerns properly. As we have heard, Members across the House face the issue regularly in their surgeries.

On the other side of the matter are local authorities, which have also complained about pressures on the high needs funding block. The National Autistic Society has raised concerns about the wait that children face to be provided with appropriate support, and a worrying increase in the number of requests for EHCP assessments that are refused by local authorities. In November, Mr Dave Hill, the executive director for children, families and learning at Surrey County Council, told the Education Committee that SEN funding was approaching a “national crisis” because of

“all the money being spent on firefighting and no money being spent on prevention.”

Indeed, North Yorkshire County Council’s high needs funding has increased by only 0.75% at the same time as demand has risen by 10%. Councils are now liable to fund children with complex needs from the ages of nought to 25 under an EHCP.

As I mentioned earlier, the introduction of EHCPs is to be welcomed and indeed they have proved popular with parents, providing both certainty and individual flexibility. However, councils have expressed concerns that their high needs budgets are becoming increasingly committed to the funding of the 20% of SEN pupils who qualify through having an EHCP, leaving little to spare for the remaining 80% of SEN students who do not qualify. That is an important point. It is particularly frustrating for the parents of children with complex needs who just fail to meet the threshold for EHCP qualification. The concern is that that is creating an all-or-nothing system, where a dramatic difference in support results from the fine margin on which someone does or does not qualify for an EHCP.

I want to draw my remarks to a conclusion because I know a number of Members want to speak. We need to look at the exam assessment concession system and whether it adequately addresses the disadvantages that SEN children face.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. Perhaps you can try to bring your remarks to a close in a moment. I am already down to two and a half minutes each for other speakers. Carry on—you are entitled to speak as long as you like, but be aware that there are eight speakers, plus the Front Benchers.

[Julian Sturdy]

I will take 30 seconds, Mr Davies. I have obviously taken a lot of interventions, which have affected what I wanted to say.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I am just advising you.

[Julian Sturdy]

I appreciate that advice, Mr Davies.

We need to review the perverse incentives that result in schools failing to identify children as SEN, and the controversy between parents and local authorities over EHCP qualification. We need to prioritise teacher training, so that all teachers have basic skills for working with children with SEN, creating a more integrated approach. I have questions whether the policy of new SEN free schools is the right way of addressing the underlying issues, as I have mentioned.

Finally, we need to look at the effectiveness of education, health and care plans, especially in regard to the proportion of local government higher needs SEN funding spent on those plans at the expense of the 80% of SEN children and students who are not on the plans or who just miss out on qualifying for an EHCP. Ultimately those children are falling through the gaps, and the consequences for their future development and potential opportunities are huge. We Westminster politicians must not forget that, and must face up to it and react. I hope that the debate, given the number of colleagues present from across the House, will mean that we can try to move things on. I look forward to hearing what the Minister and other Front-Bench speakers have to say.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I was going to call the Front Benchers at 10.25 but I will now call them at 10.30, and give them eight, eight and 12 minutes. Other Members will have two and a half minutes.

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[James Frith]

My colleague makes an excellent point. I enjoy serving alongside her on the Committee. Punishing school budget cuts have resulted in the loss of teaching assistants, removing capacity from the classroom. In every other walk of life, specialist provision is viewed as additional support that is scalpel-like in its focus, or as enhanced provision, but SEND provision in school classrooms is viewed as low-hanging fruit to be cut, owing to the increasing demand on budgets. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

Teaching assistants have gone. One school I represent has lost six and another has lost four. One of my schools told me:

“We can no longer afford to provide additional elements not covered by the statement…with the result that our more vulnerable pupils find it really difficult to cope at lunchtimes. My High Needs budget is actually ALL spent supporting pupils in my school with EHC plans and SEN hours as school has to provide the first £6,000 from its own budget.”

That needs to be looked at. Another school said:

“The numbers of SEND cohort have increased significantly in terms of social, emotional and mental health”,

which has been touched on. Health absolutely needs to be at the table; it too frequently is not. I urge the Minister to look at the issue and to work cross party and on the findings of the Committee’s ongoing SEND inquiry when we report in the summer.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I call Marion Fellows. It would be helpful if you keep your remarks to about eight minutes.

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[Mike Kane]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Our hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle referred to a finite budget. There are limits to resources, but what are we doing? We are creating a lost generation. In 20 or 30 years’ time, we will say that this is the generation that went through the school system on this Government’s watch. It will be the lost generation: 10,000 children a year are off-rolled, and kids with special educational needs are not getting the assistance they need.

Local authorities have overspent their budgets over the past four years and, as has been highlighted, there is a catastrophic shortfall of more than half a billion pounds this year. The mantra from Ministers that more money than ever before—record investment—is going into education not only rings hollow, but shows a total disconnect between reality and rhetoric. As a further shocking indictment of the Government’s complete failure to provide adequate SEND support in schools, a UN report in 2016 concluded that the UK was guilty of

“grave or systematic violations of the rights of persons with disabilities”.

I came into politics because I was inspired by my MP, Alfred Morris, who introduced the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 as a private Member’s Bill. That was the first legislation recognising the human rights of disabled people in any legislature on the planet, and Alf Morris became the world’s first Minister for the Disabled. He would be spinning in his grave if he could see what state we have come to in this country and how we are now treating pupils with SEN and disabilities.

The Government must get a grip and fully fund and implement suitable SEND support in schools. Labour would do things differently. We have already said that we would give—[Interruption.] I am hearing muttering from the Government Benches, but the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) needs to hear this message, because things do not have to be like this. We would fund local government services adequately. We pointed that out in our manifesto. We would also replace what has been taken in cuts to our schools. [Interruption.]

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Mike Kane]

Ten years of this Government has completely overturned the investment that we saw in schools in the 1990s in particular. Our national education service—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Cheltenham want to intervene?

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[Mike Kane]

We also have to say that there was not austerity up to 2015, because the education budget was protected. What is happening is actually ideological, because the Government do not want to see that amount of GDP spent on schools in our country. We are going back to the 1980s—we all see it.

The national education service that Labour proposes has at its heart the guiding principle that access to education should be a fundamental right for all, no matter who they are, where they are from or what their circumstances are, because a good education can make a difference. The hon. Member for York Outer pointed this out most eloquently. For too long, SEND provision has been seen as an add-on, as an extra. We are committed to a truly inclusive education system, based on choice, where children, parents and adult learners with SEND alike can attend mainstream or specialist provision and achieve their goals. It is simply not right that a child should lose out because of the circumstances into which they were born or because they have special needs. I and my party are determined to change that for good.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

We have caught up on time, so the Minister has almost 15 minutes.