Children and Families Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Addington]

190: Clause 62, page 44, line 39, at end insert—
“(g) apprenticeship training providers.”

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I draw my attention and that of the Committee to the subject of apprenticeships and dyslexia and special educational needs generally. In doing so, I return to a subject which I feel I have imposed on Members of this House rather too often over the past few years. Although I suspect that one or two noble Lords present will have heard everything about it, most have heard some of it and some have heard most, so I apologise for going over the ground again. However, it all goes back to the 2009 Act, brought in by the previous Government, and the principle that people should be able to pass a qualification in English and maths. At the time, I said that that requirement would make things extremely difficult for those in the dyslexic spectrum, and received a degree of assurance that it would not be used as a barrier.

I then said, “Oh, that’s done” and forgot about it. Just over a year later, I received the first of a series of communications from Lynn McCann about her son David, who had passed all the components of a carpentry course, except for the English requirement because he was dyslexic. The normal way of getting through an exam if you have a problem with dyslexia is—we touched on this earlier with my assistive technology amendment—to dictate the exam to someone. It is nice and simple; it is easy for a person to programme. This cannot be done for this qualification for the simple reason that you have to pass it yourself.

The logic behind it seemed quite overwhelming at the time. The big employers had said that they wanted people who were good at certain things, such as basic skills in English and maths. When you think about that for a few seconds it starts to fall apart because employers also want people who do not get sick, who do not have children who get sick and who do not ask for pay rises. These are all attractive things to employers.

So far, we have a situation where people cannot take the exam. When I first raised this—it was more than three years ago so I apologise for the brief history lesson—I was told, “Let’s go and meet the Minister”. The Minister said, “That’s ridiculous, let’s sort it out”. I then went to my first big meeting, where I was told that there was a problem, and then to another meeting where I was told that the legislation states that the candidate has to pass the exam, we cannot do anything about it and assistive technology cannot be used because it is a test of their skills. I have since discovered that that is rubbish. It can be done and the main area of concern is apparently the formatting of the exam; that is, the way that it is written down in the computer language is not compatible with assistive technology. Therefore, it does not read it back properly and the types of communication get into trouble.

In the course of this debate I may hear that this has changed. If I hear that it has all changed, is all wonderful and tomorrow we can go away and forget about this, nobody will be quicker out of the door than me. However, I suspect that that will not be the case. We ask ourselves: why is this important? I have heard some pretty dreadful things from officials in this case. One which I played for a laugh last time—I do not think I will do it again—was somebody who said, “Well, nobody’s complained about it so it can’t be a big problem”. I said, “You mean nobody has written to you or sent you a long e-mail”. It is good; it still works. At the time, his face went through an interesting change of colour as he realised what he had said. Before that, I had heard that nobody would lose their job. To go back to David McCann, no, he would not lose his job because he works for his father. I suggest that changing his job without this qualification is like stamping “NEET” across his forehead and sending him out there.

I realise that I have done the classic thing that everyone with dyslexia, or on any disability spectrum, does and used myself as too much of an example. Many dyslexics might get by with support, even taking a written, or in this case a keyboard-based, examination. However, my Amendments 190 and 194 suggest that support should be provided for apprenticeships within the college structure. At the moment, there is not much teaching done by qualified teachers, and there is no desire or embracement. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, the culture for providing assistance is not there. The amendment makes it explicit.

Amendment 192A makes it explicit that the technical support should be included. I am sorry to jump around a bit—we dyslexics do that—but the argument against technical support is an interesting one. I have subsequently heard that to reformat and include it would be against the security of the examination. You would think this was so serious that a nuclear launch code was intrinsic to this English assessment exam. A dyslexic who could memorise and do the exact test for this examination is not a dyslexic. Spellings cannot be restored and sequential thought in the areas of the brain that handle language do not work well enough for that. So that is one group who could not cheat at this, and I suspect that there are a few others who could not do the English language test either. The maths test is also a problem, especially as I have it on good authority that anyone who uses strange language to describe the information and, if it is written down, does not understand the words, cannot work with it.

All I am saying is that for apprenticeships, a system for saying that you have acquired a practical skill should be accessible to those who have disabilities. I started with dyslexia, but I discovered that that is not the only group affected. The Alliance for Inclusive Education, known as ALLFIE, a group that I do not always agree with, says that it has found similar problems for those with learning disabilities. We have a system that is not sensitive to special educational needs. To include these amendments would start to encourage it to become so.

We are in Grand Committee. I regard this as the first round in the end game. I have been going on at Members of this House for far too long on this matter. I should not have had to in the first place. I accept that the cock-up school of history has got in there somewhere. I do not think that anyone seriously intended this to happen. But we should surely take the opportunity in this Bill to change it. To go back to the first meeting I had when an official told me that it was in the legislation, my reply was, “We change legislation in Parliament, don’t we? We do it all the time”. I did not think I would have to wait this long and I thought it was a stalling action at the time. Can we have some final action?

If I am offered a meeting, may I draw on another fact? The British Dyslexia Association has had a series of 60 meetings on this. I have come to the conclusion that the lead negotiator, the person who has taken on the role of saint and poor bloody infantry in this, one Sue Flohr, probably has a secret admirer in one of the departments who wants to keep on meeting her. If you have had 60 meetings, something is very wrong. With one you accept that there is a problem but two means you have not come up with an answer. I suggest that somebody somewhere has to start making sure that a practical change is made. This has gone on for too long and has affected too many people, and I have not even gone on about all those who have failed. Lots of people have failed; what has happened to them? There may be a case for that later in the Bill. Something has to happen.

I leave with one example. The British Dyslexia Association has a series of examples through its helpline. You have to be pretty lucky or desperate to find your way to the helpline of that small charity on this subject. A girl called Sophie was doing a visual merchandising apprenticeship. I will not go into the details, but her college basically said, “You ain’t going to pass, so we ain’t entering you”. That is the worst condemnation of this situation that I have come across: “You ain’t going to pass, so we're not interested”. I suggest that colleges are probably getting wise to the fact that if you are dyslexic you will have a problem, but “We ain’t going to take you” is only one step away from that background knowledge. To go back to the culture and experience raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, we must do something that makes this explicit now. It must be something that has an end game attached to it. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Walmsley]

I may have misheard my noble friend but when he gave a list of all the different kinds of exams for which these assisted technologies are available, I do not recall hearing him mention apprenticeships.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, perhaps I may clarify the situation. It is the functional skills test and, before it, the key skills tests that are the problem. There has always been a much better attitude towards GCSEs, A-levels and degrees. I should draw noble Lords’ attention to my interest as chairman of a firm that provides some of the kit for the DSA, which for a dyslexic is voice-operated technology—the stuff that I use that was initially provided by the House of Lords authorities. So there is an establishment. The problem is with this one set of exams, which are crucial to getting this qualification, in which the dyslexics—who are 10% of the population in this country and 20% in America—should be overrepresented. Even if this would be appropriate for only half those dyslexics, that would still represent a hell of a lot of people.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I have already said that I am not entirely satisfied and have some sympathy with the points made by my noble friend Lord Addington. However, I have not finished my speech and have not reached the point about apprentices.

I return to what we have achieved already. Personally, I was not aware that such welcome advances have been made. I hope I have convinced my noble friend Lord Addington that there is not a legislative gap in relation to such technology, and that there is good progress and continued willingness to work together to eliminate the practical and technical issues that remain.

Amendments 190 and 194 taken together would require apprenticeship providers to use their best endeavours to secure support for SEN. I recognise the concern of my noble friends Lord Addington, Lady Sharp and Lady Walmsley that young people with SEN may need additional support during their apprenticeship. I should like to make it clear that young people with EHC plans are able to attain their plans during their apprenticeship with all the support that they set out. Where a local authority has agreed with a young person who has an EHC plan that an apprenticeship is the best option, arrangements to support them should be built in at the point at which the place is commissioned. For example, if the local authority commissions a place from a private apprenticeship provider, the terms of that contract should include any SEN provision required. If that is not possible, the local authority should not place them there.

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[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I did not ask for that: I asked for there to be assisted technology. I have conveyed all the information to everyone in this Room by talking into a microphone that is attached to my computer, which is technology that is now two decades old. This can be done cheaply and efficiently. There is just no argument about that. Voice-to-text technology is well established and used everywhere else. If you use a computer as your primary form of communication, it is cheap and available. It is easy to train. I do not know how many dozen people do so but everyone you have talked about can use that technology. This is not about removing qualifications but proving that your communication skills can be established.

I have just reached the point where I need glasses because my arms got a little too short. They are of technical assistance and may well be more expensive than the software that I am talking about. It is a ridiculous thing to say: the technology merely allows you to access things in a different way.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I understand how passionate my noble friend is about the use of technology. I am not opposing it. I applaud the development of these technologies. But if we were to introduce an additional duty, it would increase the regulatory burden on many hundreds of private businesses, which goes directly against the considerable efforts of the Government to reduce red tape for businesses. Finally, good practice guidance from the 16 Diversity in Apprenticeship pilots is now available on the National Apprenticeship Service website. The Government commissioned an independent report on creating an inclusive apprenticeship offer, and their response, the apprenticeships action plan for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, is currently being implemented. Action includes: use of the Equality Act definition of “disabled” for the apprenticeship offer, employers being able to signal willingness to recruit more disabled apprentices on apprenticeship vacancies online using the “two ticks” scheme, which guarantees disabled applicants an interview if they meet the basic requirements for the role; and work to improve the reporting of data.

The National Apprenticeship Service is offering additional one-to-one support for young people who have been unable to secure an apprenticeship due to competition for a place. The DWP is working with the Joint Apprenticeship Unit to promote additional support, such as access to work payments.

Ministers are not deaf. We have listened to what noble Lords have said in Committee. We will look very carefully and consider what steps we need to take to meet the concerns of noble Lords. Primarily, we will have further meetings outside the Committee to look at this further but I suggest that government officials and noble Lords carefully read Hansard to see where we are. I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments at the appropriate points.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I have a quick word to say before my noble friend withdraws the amendment. The Minister has obviously been given a very long brief by officials but I can probably say that the Committee is not bamboozled by it. I do not think that that was the intention and I have been reassured by hearing about how much support can be given to young people with dyslexia as they go through their apprenticeships. But the point that my noble friend is making is that all this is to no avail if they cannot get that piece of paper at the end of the course. The fact is that without some technical help with their written English to enable them to express what they have learnt, those young people cannot get that piece of paper, and that means they cannot move on. It really is as narrow as that. All that good stuff that the Minister has been talking about is welcome but does not cover getting the piece of paper—in other words, passing the functional skills test. That is the problem. There have been lots of meetings but no progress has been made. I appeal to my noble friend to have further meetings with those of us who are concerned about this, if that is what is needed, but something has to be done. This issue is much narrower than what is in the vast majority of my noble friend’s briefing.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, to give the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, a rugby analogy—good players catch bad balls and take the tackle. The noble Earl has been tackled, stood on and everything else—it has all happened—but I congratulate him on being man enough to stand up to it in the first place. The subtext that I take from the response is, “Oh, it can happen but it does not”. I am afraid that that is not good enough; it is more of the same with regard to what I have already spoken about. Technical assistance is provided in the Access to Work programme; it is not just a question of DSAs. The thinking appears to be that we help dyslexics by providing them with a government grant from another department to enable them to go to work but we do not let them take a qualification. We provide that metal box with those little gadgets on the side of it to allow someone to function after they have obtained a qualification, but not before. The point about English and maths just does not stand up for anybody who requires minor assistance, and never did. I will, of course, withdraw the amendment but I do not want to come back in two or three years’ time, or wait for another Bill, to correct the position. I do not think that anybody’s interest, including that of the Minister, would be served by going through this again.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, just before the noble Lord withdraws the amendment and sits down, I would say to the Minister, on behalf of the Committee, that, as was said in relation to Amendment 192, it is not the form of words that matters, it is the outcome. As regards this amendment, I think what the Committee is saying to the Minister is that it is not the meeting that matters, it is the outcome.

[Lord Addington]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, and say to him that the grouping of these two very important amendments did him no favours. I would have commented further on that matter if I had felt there was time to do so. I think that we have gone as far as we can today but we must have an end game soon. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 190 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Addington]

195: Clause 63, page 45, line 15, at end insert—
“( ) The appropriate authority must designate a member of staff who shall be a qualified teacher and must have undertaken training to include a mandatory module on special educational needs, including specific learning difficulties at the school (to be known as the “SEN co-ordinator”) as having responsibility for co-ordinating the provision for pupils with special educational needs.”

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I shall endeavour to be quicker on this issue, which concerns the training of those who deal with pupils with disabilities, or hidden disabilities, such as dyslexia. I apologise to the Committee for having rather overdone the “misspelling mafia” scenario in the past few minutes. Unless a teacher is trained to deal with pupils with very different learning patterns, he or she will not be able to teach them well. That is the underlying philosophy running through these two amendments.

A great deal of work has been done. Indeed, under the previous Government, a lot of the foundation stones for this approach were put down, and we had Rose and Lamb looking at this issue. If teachers do not know how to spot why somebody is failing to learn, or is learning in a different and slower way, they cannot give the appropriate assistance. Why is dyslexia mentioned here? It is the most frequently occurring condition. It may not be the biggest educational problem, but—the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, is not in the Room—with certain aspects of speech and language, I will bet that there is a high degree of comorbidity.

If we are dealing with something this important, then we have got to make sure that a degree of training is instilled in those people who have got to deal with it on a day-to-day basis. The people who will start to notice that somebody is working differently will also be able to go to that person and say, “This is why you are not learning quickly”. One of the most standard conversations in dyslexia is this: a parent comes in and says, “My child needs help” and it is then discovered that the parent is also dyslexic but has manfully struggled through without assistance. We have got to try to get the identification going properly. One, help the child; two, enable them to open up and access assistance so that the coping strategies that we have just discussed can be put in place.

When it comes to making sure SENCOs get better training, it is a no-brainer. If the administrative structure of a SENCO is fine and everybody teaching is fine, they should also know what they are talking about. Dyslexia is the most common but there are other conditions out there. I am merely saying that this is where we are coming from but that we are not the whole story. Please will the Government give me an idea about what they are going to do to make sure that there is better training and awareness among teaching staff so that those with these needs can get into the school population and open themselves up to receive the help that is there? We end up doing it slowly, later on and then encountering problems, as we indicated just a few minutes ago. I hope that my noble friend has something positive to say on this. This is very much a probing amendment, so how are the Government thinking about getting better awareness and training about this particular problem, and special educational needs generally, into the teaching profession and particularly, those in charge of it? I beg to move.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I support my noble friend in these two amendments. Amendment 195 seeks to put what sort of qualifications a SENCO should have in the Bill, because currently it just says:

“The appropriate authority must designate a member of staff at the school (to be known as the “SEN co-ordinator”)”.

Clause 63(3) says that regulations may,

“require appropriate authorities ... to ensure that SEN co-ordinators have prescribed qualifications or prescribed experience”.

Looking at the draft SENCO code of practice, I was reassured to see that it says on page 78 that governing bodies,

“must ensure that there is a qualified teacher designated as Special Educational Needs (SEN) co-ordinator (SENCO) for the school. The SENCO must be a qualified teacher working at the school”.

Newly qualified SENCOs,

“must achieve the National Award in Special Educational Needs Coordination within 3 years of appointment”.

That is very reassuring, but what I do not understand is why that cannot go in the Bill. That is what my noble friend is looking for in Amendment 195.

Amendment 196 goes further and suggests that all teachers in their initial teacher training should have some proper training in how to identify special educational needs. The fact is that all teachers know that they are teachers of SEN because in every class there are children with special needs. It is crucial that every teacher has some idea of how to spot that and make sure that the appropriate, additional and more specialist skills and provision are made for them if the teacher cannot give it themselves. There is something in these two amendments which requires a little more reassurance and explanation from the Minister.

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[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Addington, Lady Walmsley and Lord Storey for highlighting the importance of high-quality teaching for pupils with SEN. I hope to set out in my response to this debate how the Government are taking this seriously.

I will first speak to Amendment 195, which would require the SENCO to be a qualified teacher and to complete mandatory training on SEN. I entirely agree with my noble friends that this should be the case. The draft Education (Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators) (England) Regulations for Clause 63 were published on 4 October. They require the SENCO to be a qualified teacher or, indeed, the head teacher of the school. In addition, schools must ensure that SENCOs who are new to that role obtain the master’s-level National Award for SEN Co-ordination within three years of being appointed. That is mandatory, as my noble friend Lord Storey said. Since 2009, we have funded 10,500 new SENCOs to complete this award. These requirements mean that SENCOs are often among the most highly qualified and experienced teachers within a school, which is absolutely fitting for the importance of the role that they fulfil.

The current specification for the national SENCO award requires SENCOs to cover approaches to assessment and teaching for pupils with special educational needs. They must demonstrate that they understand the four areas of need as set out in the code of practice as well as implications of these for teaching practice. They should specifically demonstrate that they know and understand about high-frequency special educational needs, such as dyslexia, and know how to draw on expert external services to meet these needs.

Amendment 196, tabled by my noble friends Lord Addington and Lady Walmsley, would impose mandatory training in SEN and specific learning difficulties for all new teachers. There are no mandatory modules and no required curriculum for initial teacher training. Instead, ITT providers must ensure that their courses enable trainee teachers to meet the Teachers’ Standards. No trainee should be recommended for qualified teacher status unless they have met the standards. The Teachers’ Standards already state that teachers must,

“have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with special educational needs”.

Teachers must also be able to adapt teaching to the needs of all pupils and have an understanding of the factors that can inhibit learning and of how to overcome them. Anybody who works in a school today knows that the identification of SEN is at the core of a school’s life. Ofsted inspects both the quality of initial teacher training and the quality of teaching in our schools. These standards, and the ability to adapt teaching to meet special educational needs, are central to these inspections.

As the noble Lord knows, we are focusing more teacher training on training in schools. Ofsted reports that 31% of SCIIT training was rated good or outstanding, compared with 13% for higher education institutions. NQTs trained through School Direct rate the quality of their SEN training more highly than other trainees. New teachers report that the quality of training in SEN has improved. In fact, it is the best ever reported. A DfE survey of 12,000 newly qualified teachers in 2012 found that just 7% of them rated their training in SEN as poor, and that 59% of primary and 66% of secondary teachers rated their training as good or very good in helping them to teach pupils with SEN. That compares to as few as 45% in 2008. The 2013 survey of NQTs on the same subject will be published on Friday. For reasons I cannot entirely fathom, I am not allowed to reveal the results today, but I will tell noble Lords—probably breaching some rule—that they are going to show a considerably improved picture.

Taking the slight digression, as she called it, of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about unqualified teachers’ SEN training and her general point about unqualified teachers, I shall make two points. Although I entirely acknowledge that the previous Government invested heavily in teacher training, they did not go as far as making SEN training mandatory for all teachers, so there is a slight inconsistency in her position. That is as nothing compared with the inconsistency in the shadow Secretary of State for Education’s position the other night, when nine times he declined to answer a question from Jeremy Paxman about whether he would send his children to a school with unqualified teachers, but let us not digress any further.

Following similar concerns put forward in another place, we have also strengthened the expectations on schools as set out in the SEN code of practice. The new code makes it absolutely clear that schools should ensure that teachers are equipped to meet pupils’ special educational needs. The code requires that teachers’ ability to meet SEN is included in the school’s approach to professional development and in their performance management arrangements. Section 6.5 of the code requires schools to review,

“teachers’ understanding of strategies to identify and support vulnerable pupils and their knowledge of the special educational needs most frequently encountered”.

I know that my noble friend Lord Addington has a long-standing interest in dyslexia and will be particularly keen to ensure that teachers are equipped to tackle this issue in schools.

The Department for Education is funding a range of specialist organisations covering autism, communications needs and dyslexia to provide information and advice to schools on implementing our reforms. The Dyslexia-SpLD Trust, for example, is providing an online professional development tool for teachers to help assess their current knowledge of dyslexia and access further training. The trust will also be providing a toolkit to help teachers identify and respond to literacy difficulties and dyslexia.

I hope that I have made clear that the Government recognise absolutely the importance of high-quality teaching for pupils with SEN and that we are determined to ensure that they get an extremely good deal. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I listened to my noble friend and he seemed to be saying that more or less everything other than making my proposal compulsory for teacher training is fine. That might be understandable but provision has been made in Scotland, which has a compulsory unit that was agreed among the universities that carry out teacher training. I had a conversation with Dyslexia Scotland, which was of the opinion that Edinburgh had the best provision at that time—but all such universities have a unit. It does not hurt anyone and I ask my noble friend to have another look at this. Will he consider what can be provided to make sure that the average teacher has every incentive and opportunity to at least get a basic awareness component into their knowledge base? I am assured that units have been prepared by numerous people and other bodies in relation to conditions such as autism. There should be an awareness programme that means that classic mistakes are not made; in dyslexia, the one I know best is, “Just work harder”. That will not work. Even if you do synthetic phonics, you will still learn at a slower rate. It is a little like making a small man carry large sacks of coal; regardless of how well he does and how he builds himself up he will never match the bigger guy and will always be at a huge disadvantage. He will be more tired, slower and learn less well.

The standard response to, “Let’s not forget the rest of the class” is either to disappear into the middle of it or to disrupt at the back, so they are not exposed to something unpleasant. If you can get to that pupil and give them some support and help, they are less likely to make life difficult in the classroom and for those around them. On average, three people in every class being taught will be on the dyslexia spectrum. You could probably stick a couple of other hidden disabilities in there as well. So an awareness package is something that we should look at. My noble friend does not look like he wants to respond now but we need to look at this later on.

I shall have to look my noble friend’s response on Amendment 195, and have a word with advisers to make sure that it covers most of our points, but it seemed to be a better response. I hope that we can have another look at this issue and at least clarify where we think the weaknesses are. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 195 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Addington]

212: After Clause 68, insert the following new Clause—
“Screening for specific learning difficulties
After section 562E(2) of the Education Act 1996 (literacy and numeracy assessments) insert—“(2A) The host authority must make arrangements to ensure that a detained person undertakes a screening test for dyslexia as soon as reasonably practicable.””

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, for me this is a case of “three times pay for all” when it comes to dyslexia. The reason I have tabled this amendment is because you find abundant evidence of special educational needs among our prison population. The estimates for the number of prisoners on the dyslexia spectrum range from 20% to 50%, the higher figure being the more frequently occurring. It is generally accepted now that every problem to do with literacy and educational attainment occurs in abundance throughout our prison population. I have singled out dyslexia for screening because of my interest in it and because it will probably be the most frequently occurring problem.

Why do we need to conduct screening for dyslexia? A few years ago I became familiar with a project in Chelmsford Prison under the leadership of Jackie Hewitt-Main. She discovered that lots of dyslexics would go nowhere near the education department. One realises in three seconds that they go nowhere near it because it constitutes a bad experience for them. Most prisoners are no longer in school by the age of 14. If someone has not been attaining in the education system, it is an unpleasant experience and they often find themselves getting into enough trouble to send them to prison. It is as if they are saying, “Let us go in there and go through a bad experience in the classroom”. Suddenly, it becomes obvious that they will try to avoid that. The redoubtable individual I mentioned was originally looking at head injuries, of which she found many. She did a survey of prisoners who would not go into the education block. She found that once you had established that link to their previous experience these prisoners became much more open to training and to assistance in changing their lives. The incidence of violence on the wing in question dropped and the prisoners stopped hitting one another quite so much—perhaps they had something to talk about. It was subsequently discovered that half the prison warders were in the same boat. As an aside, dyslexics tend to like regular hours and regular forms et cetera. They do not like promotion when they have to change the form, but that is an aside for another day.

So having a form of assessment on entrance into the system would seem to be sensible idea. Once again, I have one caveat, which I have given before: you should probably extend this to a list of other conditions. For example, I discovered that Asperger’s is overrepresented as well. If you have problems with communication and you have problems with the law, once again it becomes quite obvious how that could happen and you go down the list. But the principle of screening is a good one. Of course, you have to back this up with the correct action. I am afraid that bits of the Prison Service have a history of screening and saying, “Yes you are”, and then doing nothing about it. An awareness programme must back it up. That is what is required.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who I am afraid has had to leave us, asked me to speak to his Amendment 213. The idea that you should maintain the EHC plans once you are inside the prison system or custody service does not require much thought. If you have an identified process going or a pattern of activity, it should be maintained or at least replaced by something extremely similar to it or better. That is fairly straightforward.

Then we come to another thing that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has tabled: removing Clause 70 from the Bill. I was half thinking about putting my name to this amendment, but I was beaten on the draw by many other Members of the Committee. Noble Lords should not press this if the Minister can tell us that the Ministry of Justice has a specially constructed programme that will address the needs of its client base that goes beyond, and is more appropriate than, that provided outside. That would be a good reason for not removing the clause because—nobody disputes this—we have a very high need base. If there is something that it is appropriate for adults or young people disaffected with the education system and is especially suited to them, you should not remove it.

If we do not get that quality assurance, we will not get people who will be able to talk about administering educational needs identification or coping strategies for how to access further education, where it is appropriate, and there will be problems. If you do not have people with a degree of sensitivity and skill in there, you should remove the clause. If we hear that we are going to do lots of wonderful things with people who are not properly trained, not skilled and not accustomed to the environment they are going into, the possibility of achieving nothing or even doing damage is high. These are probing amendments and I look forward to hearing what my noble friend has to say.

[Lord Storey]

Any hope of improving the education of detained young people must include addressing their special educational needs. It is a frightening statistic that 70% of those young people have special educational needs and 20% of them currently have statements.

The existing statutory duties placed on those councils that have a youth offender institution in their area—a host authority—by the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 are to use,

“best endeavours to secure that appropriate special educational provision is made”,

but of course councils have never had the funding or the commissioning responsibility for securing that education. Those duties are currently fulfilled through contracts made by the Education Funding Agency funded by the Ministry of Justice.

As the concept of the host authority has never been implemented in practice, it would perhaps be helpful to see this complicated situation resolved by repealing those clauses in the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 that refer to the host authorities. The Government have acknowledged that the current situation is not working, and could use the opportunity to make provision for young offenders with special educational needs that can work in practice and really address the needs of those young people.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise for asking a quick question. How does the virtual school head that this Bill puts on a statutory basis keep track of a looked-after child who enters the secure estate? Many of them will have special educational needs. There is no need for a response now but perhaps it is a matter that the Minister can think about for us to discuss at some point.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that—shall I say?—reassuring answer. It was not the radical announcement that I was half hoping for, perhaps forlornly. However, it is certainly reassuring to know that people are thinking about this problem. I should also say to my noble friend that there is a lot of cross-party consensus on this. I do not think that anyone has any idea other than to try and improve this Bill, so I encourage him to make sure that we are all engaged in this. The continuation of political support on this issue can, on this occasion, be added to and built on. All of us want to find a sustainable and improving way to reach this incredibly hard-to-reach group. My noble friend Lady Walmsley talked about the problems that someone who cannot read has in accessing help. To take that one step further: try accessing the benefits system without being able to fill in a form, and then have the fear of humiliation in admitting that you cannot read. I encourage my noble friend to encourage the Ministry of Justice to address this. It must do so because everyone is a winner if we get this right. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 212 withdrawn.