Children with Autism (Education)

Debate between Gordon Birtwistle and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks, but the families of the children I am talking about would totally disagree—they will no doubt be happy to meet him later to explain the serious problems they are having. I am not pushing for private education. Rossendale might well be a private school, and so too might one or two others. All I am saying is that if Rossendale can provide it, why can Lancashire county council not do the same through the state system? Why can the council not be just as good as Rossendale? I do not want to promote a private school; I want to promote extremely good education for my constituents.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman—it is difficult not to call him my hon. Friend—will know of my interest in this subject. I am sorry that I arrived a little late to this debate; I was chairing a committee at the other end of the building. I am delighted that he is making this speech. I want to make the point, having chaired the Education Committee when it conducted a major inquiry into special educational needs, that the lack of early diagnosis and early access to psychological and mental health therapy is a problem up and down the country, not just in Lancashire. The length of time it can take for a child suspected of having such a condition to be evaluated and then given the support they need is a national disgrace.

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I could not have put it better myself. That is the argument I am making. We are having this debate because I was approached by three families in my constituency. I had thought that this was a small issue. I did not anticipate the flood of e-mails and correspondence I received, and not only from Lancashire, but from all over the country. I agree with it 100%.

We can sit here all day long saying that this is happening all over the country, but what are we doing about it? We need to do something. Why are children with autism and ADHD being tret in that way? As the hon. Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick) has said, Lancashire county council provides education to more than 1,400 young people with autism spectrum disorder, but why are my constituents, who are up in the Gallery, being tret differently from anybody else? Why does the council not treat them in the same way? Why are their children totally different from somebody else’s? Why do they have to suffer? Why does Chloe’s mother have to suffer in that way while other parents do not?

If Lancashire county council delivers such a great service, as the hon. Gentleman says, why is it letting Chloe and her mother down? That is my issue today. I am happy for Lancashire county council to deliver the best service available in the country, but it has to be for everybody, not just the few. My purpose today is to raise the issue with the Minister and ask him to look into it and take it forward.

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I will shortly come to a case where I got involved in talking about private or public provision and heard stories from the staff at the county council.

The next case is that of a young man called Jack Entwistle, a nine-year-old autistic boy who should currently be enjoying his school holidays but, unfortunately, has already been out of education for three months. He is at a critical age educationally and developmentally, but so far he has been failed by the county council. This is not just about Lancashire county council—it will be happening all over, but I have not met anybody from any other county council area with similar experiences.

[Mr Sheerman]

rose—

[Gordon Birtwistle]

It might be happening in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency; in fact, I am sure it is. I have been to Huddersfield, and it is a beautiful place that I would always be happy to visit, but I can talk only about the people I know.

[Mr Sheerman]

May I tempt the hon. Gentleman, who is an old friend of mine, to be more forensic? We need to do better—all of us here in the Chamber today who care about this. He is right: we all see similar cases in our constituency advice services. The real problem, right across the country, is proper early diagnosis, whether in the private or the state sector—it does not matter. What the parents want is early diagnosis so that support and intervention can then take place and the child has a chance to develop their spark of potential in the very best way. We are talking about some very, very clever kids who need support really early on in their careers. If we can share, forensically, information about where the barriers are and why early diagnosis is not taking place, we can be much more effective. We have here a very good Minister who partly trained on my Select Committee at one stage. I know that he is good on this and cares about it, and we can make a compelling case to him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Birtwistle]

Absolutely. I pretty much agree with everything that has been said and most people seem to agree with what I am saying. My argument is that, although the hon. Members for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) have all made amazing suggestions, we do not act on them. While we sit here and talk, why are thousands of young people and families across the country suffering? I have met some of those families and they are at the edge of life. It should not have to be like that. Proper facilities should be provided.

[Mr Sheerman]

This is the first time I have risen to make an intervention in this House to say something positively nice about the Government: the Children and Families Act 2014, which was passed recently, met an aspiration that I had had for many years, namely that someone diagnosed with special educational needs will have a special relationship with evaluation until they are 25. That is wonderful and we should pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) and the Government for it. The sensitive issue, however, is what has happened to services such as child and adolescent mental health services, which seem to be falling apart up and down the country, but the Government are not reacting to that.

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I am grateful for that intervention and I will address the hon. Gentleman’s comments when I come to the end of my contribution.

Thirdly, I want to talk about a little girl called Honey, who is the daughter of a constituent of mine with a hairdressing salon near my office in Burnley. She is a lovely, lively little girl—she spends time in my office on occasion—who has very mild autism. She had to be moved six months into her final year in primary school due to trauma and threat of exclusion. Basically, she was classed as a naughty girl.

Honey’s new primary school quickly established the need for a statement of educational needs—why had it not been picked up earlier?—and had evidence from an independent educational psychologist to present to the panel. Once again, however, the Lancashire county council educational psychologist reassessed Honey and challenged the independent assessment.

No secondary school place has been arranged for Honey, despite her parents choosing Rossendale school. There may be other schools that are as good as that independent school, but Rossendale is one of the few providers catering for high-functioning ASD children in Lancashire. Honey’s parents’ preference for Rossendale was put to a panel, which rejected it. The panel suggested a special school for severely disabled children, which was named without the parents’ agreement.

Lancashire county council advised the family to look at other options, but every time the family went back to the panel, their wishes were rejected. Naturally, that has had an effect on Honey’s self-esteem, and her anxieties have increased by the rejection of her choice of school. The family therefore appealed to SENDIST––the special educational needs and disability tribunal—against the named school, and asked for Rossendale school to be named. Honey has been in front of a judge, to whom she outlined her future aspirations, of which she has many. However, the family has had no success in integrating her into the school she suggested.

Honey has anxieties and fears connected with the named school. She has now been out of school for more than 12 months, which is detrimental to her health and education. Despite her parents’ request for an annual review, that has been overlooked. Such requests should be considered natural: if somebody asks for a review, it should be accepted.

When I have attempted to speak to the county council about this matter, I have been told many stories. The lady in charge, Charlotte Finch, the SEND integrated assessment team manager, has given me confusing statements about whether Honey or any child for that matter can attend Rossendale independent school or another school of the same quality. She said that no child from Lancashire is to attend the school, but the head of the school has since told me that that is not true. Lancashire county council does send children to Rossendale school, but when I spoke to the council I was told that it did not. Such treatment has created hostility between the child’s family and the council.

Most education authorities, including Lancashire, fail to appreciate and understand the needs of autistic children that I, like countless others, have described. I must stress that those are the first three cases I was approached to help with that I have time to deal with in this debate, but they are by no means my only cases. I have been inundated—and, indeed, saddened—by cases of the many families across Lancashire and the whole country who are suffering the same plight.

Autism must be understood, as must the child in question. Information provided by Lancashire county council and other authorities suggests that they do not have data about the number of children with autism who are out of school. The way in which they store the data means that they cannot be broken down by disability, which is clearly a problem in itself.

Furthermore, there is evidently a problem with Lancashire county council’s approach to autism. According to information that I obtained from an individual involved in a professional capacity with the council, in March the head of inclusion and disability, Sally Riley, held an information and training morning for all school staff about the new SEN code, which has been mentioned today. During it, the number of tribunals was discussed, as was the council’s success in winning them. For me, that is the wrong way round: it is not for the council to win a tribunal against a child; the child should win the tribunal because otherwise they are put out of school. Why do tribunals not understand that children need help? I would be delighted if such a department head at the county council stood up and said, “I’m sorry. We’ve failed every tribunal, and every child has got the school they need.” Unfortunately, however, what is happening is the other way around. The figures highlighted that the council had won more than they had lost, which is disgraceful.

We are running short of time and many other Members wish to speak in this debate, so I will conclude. One big problem is that the family members of children in Burnley have rapidly lost confidence in the education department of Lancashire county council, just as, I am sure, families across the country lose confidence in their education authorities. We need to do something to resolve that situation. I hope that after this debate the Minister will take up the cudgel for children with autism, particularly those in my constituency. As the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) said, we need to find out what the problems are earlier and deliver the services sooner. I hope that the Minister will take that up.

Manufacturing

Debate between Gordon Birtwistle and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

My sincere apologies for arriving two minutes after the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) started his speech, but I think I caught the gist of it. We have worked harmoniously in calling for this debate, and I am delighted that we are having it today, and that it is cross-party. The group of us who are associated with the all-party manufacturing group are very pleased about that. My interest in manufacturing has obviously been a total failure. I have been in this House for more than 30 years, and I started the manufacturing group not long after I got into Parliament. Ever since the original all-party manufacturing group started, our manufacturing sector has shrunk and shrunk, under all parties and all Governments.

I represent Huddersfield, the cradle of the industrialisation of our country. Anyone who knows anything about my part of the world will know that even today it is a centre for the highest-quality wool textiles—super-100 and super-110 worsteds and so on. It is also very well known for its engineering, for David Brown gears and many other manufacturing companies, and of course for chemicals, which come from the traditional industry of dyestuffs for textiles.

Huddersfield became an industrial town because of power. The energy coming from the fast-flowing streams from the Pennines—the Holme, the Colne and the Calder—attracted industry because that is what made the mills work. That is how we got industry in our part of the world. It was a manufacturing town. There was not much in Huddersfield; there was the old village of Almondbury, which is a bit of a market town, and an ancient place, but the modern town is 18th and predominantly 19th century. Some 70% of the population would have been in the manufacturing sector. We are now down to about 8.9% manufacturing employment in the constituency, whereas 86.7% of employment is in various forms of services; 33% is in health, education, or working for the local authority. We are lucky to have a large and successful university, Huddersfield university, which is pre-eminent in engineering, textiles and design innovation, but that does not disguise the fact that we are pre-eminently in the service sector; 87% of employment is in services of various kinds. Unemployment is at its highest level since I became a Member of Parliament.

[Gordon Birtwistle]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the collapse of manufacturing in Huddersfield, which has gone from 30% or 40% of employment to 8%, is significant given that youth unemployment is so high? Huddersfield’s colleges are training young people to be engineers and manufacturers, yet the collapse of manufacturing industry means that the jobs are not there any more for them to do. Manufacturing has been overtaken by the services sector. Does he agree that it is high time we reversed the trend towards the services sector and returned to a buoyant manufacturing sector, which could employ those young people?

[Mr Sheerman]

I would go 90% of the way with the hon. Gentleman, but I would not accept the word “collapse”, because we still have a vibrant, though much smaller, manufacturing sector in engineering and chemicals. The textiles, engineering and chemicals industries are still there, and have very high productivity, but the capability now is such that we turn out an enormous amount of worsted in a crinkly shed—not one of the magnificent old stone mills—that is working 24/7. I think we underrate the productivity of some of those industries.

I do not want to make Members suicidal, but let us compare the decline of the UK’s manufacturing sector with that of other countries before moving on to something more cheerful. In Great Britain around 8.8% of employment is in manufacturing. Some figures for 2008 indicate 9.8% for manufacturing and 80.8% for services. Things are very similar, if not worse, in the United States, where employment in 2009 was 8.9% in manufacturing and 83.4% in services. The decline of manufacturing in the UK has very much gone in parallel with the experience of the US. By comparison, Germany still has 18.5% in manufacturing and 73% in services, and China has 27.8% in manufacturing and 53% in services.

I want to draw the House’s attention to the UK’s balance of trade, particularly the trade deficit with Germany, which last year was £16.8 billion, and with China, which was £21.6 billion. Whatever is happening today, and despite the depressing interview with Chancellor Merkel last night, which persuaded me that we are on the precipice of a world recession, we must remember that Germany has been very fortunate and that the eurozone has been very kind to German manufacturers over this period. The renminbi, the Chinese currency, which the Chinese conveniently manipulate to give their manufacturing exports every possible advantage, has done the same for China.

I want to dwell on the future and what kind of society we want. It seems to me that we want a wealth-creating society that produces the goods and wealth that can then be shared. Some of us disagree about the levels of individual and corporate taxation, but we all agree that we have to produce the wealth in order to share it, whatever way we choose to do so. I am concerned that if we do not do something in the manufacturing sector we will not have very much to share.

What do we depend on? A core element at every level of activity is the fact that in every facet of human experience success depends on the quality of the people who do the job, their skills and commitment and their desire to do a good job. In the 10 years that I chaired the Education and Skills Committee, that came home time and again. The history of our country is one of clever and skilled people with ingenuity, determination and a hunger to do something. We have had an amazing crop of entrepreneurs. At the heart of our manufacturing problem is the fact that too many people in our country who go to university do not go into manufacturing. I remember walking across the hallowed lawns of Magdalen college with the master some years ago. I asked him whether any of his graduates went into manufacturing or public service. He replied, “Oh no, they all go into the City.” If we continue to make the City and banking the profession of choice, we will be in even more trouble than we are in at the moment.