Queen’s Speech

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, in a long debate such as this, covering so many subjects, it is probably reassuring if you are the first person to raise a particular area. Before I start this speech, I have one or two interests to declare because I shall talk about the changes to the disabled students allowance proposed by the Minister, David Willetts. I have already raised this once but I think I might have to raise it again, or indeed repeatedly over the next few months, because whenever a Minister grabs at something and says, “We’ll change it”, but has clearly not been that well briefed they will get themselves into a bit of trouble. We have a situation where dyslexics or people with specific learning difficulty—I repeat that I have never been a person with specific learning difficulty but am somebody who is dyslexic, as I do not know why we use four words when one will do, even if it is a long one—get a specific mention here, as we did in the Written Statement that came out.

It is true that this fund has expanded dramatically over the years and has not been reformed since it was created in 1990. However, I find it very worrying to be suddenly stating that we are to get rid of lots of it and make lots of savings, when one clearly does not have a hold of its real function or how it works. That is what has happened here. The first interest, which I should put on the record straightaway, is that I am chairman of a company called Microlink, which was one of the first companies to deal with this back in 1990, if not the first. However, I am not totally against any form of change in this field. I can safely say that this is an increasingly small part of that company’s activity; indeed, we would quite happily get rid of it because what we have left has been loss-making in the past couple of years. There is a degree of knowledge there not wedded to the current system.

We have been taking on dyslexics, who are the biggest disability group in the country. They are 10% of the population, to use our definition, but 20% if you use the American one. They are one in five in the United States. It is stated that this group has expanded and is using a computer as standard to get hold of this technology, which will now run on a standard computer, and that everybody has a computer. Just to pull that apart, it is true that access to the software is the vital bit. Without a computer that functions and can handle that software, you do not have access to the software so you cannot use it. The voice-to-text or text-to-voice technology does not work unless the computer gets down there. People will tell you that it is just about okay. We have all had a computer that can just about handle the program—until it gets a bug or is a little old, or a little overloaded with its memory going down. If the software you are using is slightly updated, it is incompatible. You must have something reliable to get the benefit out of it. I do not think there is any great rocket science involved in that; it is just the way it is.

Now we are being told that the universities will provide the software and support, and that if you cannot afford to have that computer there will be other funds, such as hardship funds or bursaries and so on, to meet it. However, those hardship funds or bursaries were not created for this and do not have the capacity. If you meet this cost here, you will inconvenience somebody else. It is true that it has expanded in size and has greater recognition, and that there is waste in it. There is the fact that you get X number of hours of non-medical help, if I remember the term correctly, given to you. If the computer works for a dyslexic properly—let us stick to “dyslexics”—they probably do not need 30 hours a year of extra support, as they might have had in 1990 from an amanuensis acting to get them through, because the computer does it for them. There could have been a change there.

Regarding the assessments, which are expensive and take time, if you have identified somebody in the school system whose brain will not radically change between, let us say, the ages of seven and 19, they will still be dyslexic. They will have learning strategies in place and will presumably have learnt to cope, if they have got through, so they do not need another assessment. However, you do under the current system so changes could be made. Something has to be done to allow these students to access the system. Why? Because if you do not, people will fail or underachieve—or, if they succeed, do so at an immensely high personal cost.

It may be morally wonderful to say to somebody, “You worked twice as hard to get your degree”. I do not think that is in the spirit of the Equality Act or the Disability Discrimination Act in front of me. Why should a person have to flog themselves half to death to get through? Why should they take a greater risk of underachieving or failing? Underachieving at university is probably the great one as if you are two grades down, you miss all the jobs that you are supposed to get afterwards. Does a bad degree qualify you for as much as having done another course? I doubt it, so how are we to make sure that that level of access is provided?

There is considerable room for reform and change in this field but just picking on the computer is ridiculous, as it is about 5% of the total cost but the thing that can guarantee that the technical aspect comes through. It is possibly less than 5%, according to the figures that I have. Other forms of help could be looked at more but please can we rethink this to make sure that the technical assistance that goes through can be used? That applies to all disabilities that use technical aids and assistance. If we cannot get that through, we will be getting people who will not achieve and who, under those circumstances, would not get there when they probably should.

Just to put the cherry on the cake, your Lordships will of course realise that other departments, such as the Department for Work and Pensions, do give assistance with similar types of technology and access to work. So there is school and access to work but the bit in the middle that links it all together is to be changed and probably removed from people. Please can we get some coherence going through this system? It is not too late to change it and get something coherent but it will have to be fairly soon so as to be ready for the 2015 intake. Can we have another look at this? If we do not, we will end up getting people half way through but dropping out or underachieving. This will basically mean saving a little here and wasting a lot somewhere else.