Deaf Children and Young People

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises the importance of services for deaf children and young people and acknowledges the wide attainment gap; further recognises that communications support for deaf children and their parents is vital for social development and educational progress; acknowledges that the Government has stated there is an expectation that funding for vulnerable learners is protected, but is concerned about recent evidence uncovered by the National Deaf Children’s Society which shows that in 2013-14 over a third of local authorities plan to cut education services for deaf children; urges the Government to take steps to hold local authorities to account and support parents in doing so, including by asking Ofsted to inspect these vital services, improving access to communication support including sign language, and strengthening the Children and Families Bill currently before Parliament; and further urges the Government to deliver and implement reform of special educational needs.

It is a particular pleasure to be launching this debate under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker, having nominated you for the post. I know that you will conduct it with the usual good humour and common sense that is your characteristic, and I will do my best to respond in a similar fashion to any strictures you may impose on me.

I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to launch this debate. I am grateful to 79 Members of the House who supported the call for us to debate this important subject, and to the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to it. I have to declare an interest, in that I am a vice-president of the National Deaf Children’s Society and of Action on Hearing Loss, and I chair the all-party group on deafness. I can also declare a personal interest, as I have a deaf daughter. She is now grown up, but she was six when I was elected to the House, so throughout my time here, and for some time before, issues relating to deaf adults and deaf children have been of paramount concern to me.

I requested today’s debate because I am concerned that support for deaf children is being cut at a time when they need more, not less, support. Having campaigned on these issues for such a long time, I remain frustrated that this country does not support deaf people as well as I believe it should and as well as some other countries do. Ten years ago, I produced a report for the Council of Europe on sign languages. I secured support from the Parliamentary Assembly for legal recognition of sign languages across Europe; sadly, the Committee of Ministers never acted on it.

I still feel that we need to ensure that deaf children get the help they need, particularly in terms of communication support. More than 50,000 people have signed a petition calling on the Government to act on the issue and many MPs have signed the motion and shown support for the debate. There is considerable strength of interest in and support for the subject. The debate is being closely watched by deaf people and their families across the country and is being actively monitored in the Twittersphere by those who are most directly affected.

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

The right hon. Gentleman and I knew Jack Ashley, who then became Lord Ashley, very well and we remember his campaigning fervour and what a wonderful person he was. He was an exemplar—they said that a deaf person could not cope in this Chamber, but he showed that he could. I wanted to get his name on the record today, because we both worked with him and admired him greatly.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I absolutely acknowledge that. Jack Ashley was the honorary president of the all-party group and, having at first been sceptical about setting up a discrete group for deaf people, he actively supported it once it was created. That is a key part of this debate. I accept that all kinds of children have special educational needs and have no doubt that the Minister will allude to Government policy on special educational needs, but I hope that he will also accept that deaf children have specific needs that need to be articulated expressly in policy and not just swept up in general issues of special needs and disability.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Before the right hon. Gentleman moves away from the subject of sign language, is he aware of the problems faced by people such as my constituent Rachel Goswell? She has a profoundly deaf son, Jesse, and the only way of communicating with him will be to learn sign language herself. There is no support locally for parents to learn sign language. Does he agree that that and the training of educationalists at a local level cannot be left to a postcode lottery? There must be national guidelines so that everyone in England gets the same level of support.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I am extremely grateful for that intervention, because my speech will make that point powerfully. There has been some progress from the previous and present Governments, but there has not yet been enough. That is a powerful point that I hope the Minister and other Ministers will take on board.

It is estimated that there are 45,000 deaf children in the UK, but no one actually knows how many there are. There is no systematic collection of statistics or data on deaf children, and that is a problem in itself. As we increasingly mainstream deaf children, they become less visible and can also be socially isolated, particularly if they are the only deaf child in the school. There is evidence that they might be bullied, they might suffer depression and not all of them thrive. I am not against mainstreaming in principle, but I believe that some profoundly and severely deaf children will make better progress in a school resourced properly and dedicated to their needs. Schools such as Heathlands in St Albans and Frank Barnes, which serves London, offer impressive education for deaf children but such schools are not found everywhere in the country.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and commend him for securing this important debate. I am pleased to say that in Warwickshire there have been no reductions in services for deaf children, but there are great difficulties in finding qualified teachers to fill vacant posts. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one issue we need to resolve is how to ensure that we train the next generation of specialist teachers for deaf children?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I absolutely do. The Government could take a number of measures that would help to lead to a market and a demand that would ensure that such teachers were trained and resourced. That is a problem. Too often, children are being taught by people who are inadequately qualified in such specialist teaching, not because the local authority does not want to employ qualified teachers but because they are not available.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who is being very generous in giving way. Does he agree that the forthcoming Bill, which envisages a nought-to-25 process, will be more inclusive for families and administratively less cumbersome and burdensome? That can only be a good thing.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I am sure that the Minister will make clear the initiatives that the Government have taken, many of which I commend; they are helpful. I am not here to criticise the Government for what they are doing, but I think that more could be done, and I hope that we can press the Government to consider what that might be.

Ninety per cent. of deaf children are born to hearing parents who, when they are confronted, as I was, with the knowledge that their child is profoundly deaf, often have no knowledge of, or contact with, the deaf community. I pay tribute to the National Deaf Children’s Society, which provides excellent support for people when that happens to them.

Eighty per cent. of deaf children are now being educated in mainstream schools, which is different from the time when my daughter was educated, and they may be the only deaf child in that school. The question that has to be asked is how well deaf children are achieving. Government figures suggest that only 37% of deaf children achieved five good GCSEs last year. That is a dismally low, indeed a shameful, figure because it compares with 69% for hearing children. Let us be clear that deafness is not in itself a learning disability. There is no reason why the majority of deaf children should not achieve the same as other children, provided that they get the right specialist support.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Not only is the difference in achievement between children with hearing problems and their peers shocking but it is getting worse. That figure of 37% was down from 40% the year before. So things are going in the wrong direction. The right hon. Gentleman may also be aware that it is estimated that 80% of teachers of deaf children are over 50. So we shall have a serious recruitment problem if we do not do something about this quickly.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

That is right. I have been shown local authority adverts for teachers of deaf children that did not require full capacity in sign language. In some circumstances, the sign language of the children is better than that of the teacher, and that cannot be satisfactory.

Things are getting worse in many areas. The NDCS has carried out a survey that shows that 29% of local authorities are cutting services for deaf children and a further 25% have identified that there is a risk of cuts. Of course we are living in a time of spending restraint, but that should not impact on people who have such real need and are so vulnerable. The Government have made it clear that they want to maintain support for vulnerable learners, but if it is not happening we have to ask the Government what more they can do to ensure that cuts do not happen and that standards are maintained. We have to work out what can be done to maintain support for deaf children, and we should have aspirations to do a lot better.

One suggestion is that Ofsted should be required to inspect services for deaf children. When we consider how much scrutiny mainstream teachers in schools are subject to by Ofsted, many people tell me that they are surprised that teachers of the deaf and specialist support services are subject to virtually no such oversight. That sends a signal that deaf education is less important than mainstream.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the reason the Government do not want to examine these issues is that the poor standard of teachers for the deaf would be exposed and there would rightly be a public scandal?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

That is a problem of government, I suppose. I would like to believe that Governments in the end will say, “We need data and if the data show that we are not up to the mark, even if we cannot solve the problem overnight, we will at least embark on a strategy to do something about it.” So it is not a good excuse not to inspect services. I should be interested to hear from the Minister whether the Government would consider giving Ofsted a specific responsibility.

Ofsted did a report on communication last year, looking at three local authorities that had established best practice. That was interesting, but it did not tell us much about the other 149 authorities that it had not studied. So we do not know and we need to know. If there is a recognition that people are going to be scrutinised, that gets the Government off the hook to some extent because it means that the authorities must respond to that scrutiny. Every tier of government that has a responsibility must accept its share of responsibility. I hope the Government will consider that as a practical suggestion.

Communication support is at the heart of what deaf children and their families need. I know that from personal experience. I have very poor sign language. I did go on a course but I found it very difficult. It is a language and I had difficulty keeping up with it. I try where I can. I notice that every time I am in the company of deaf people—which, because of my interest, I very often am—the transformation of that relationship by the sheer appearance of an interpreter is phenomenal. Therefore I understand absolutely why communication support is so valuable. As one blind person said to me, “I would prefer to be blind than deaf because being blind cuts me off from things, but being deaf would cut me off from people and I would find that far worse.” That is what people need to understand—the social isolation resulting from the lack of communication support.

I tabled a private Member’s Bill which notionally has its Second Reading next Friday. It identifies the areas of communication support that the deaf community is looking for, and it identifies the need to ensure that we can develop sign language support for them. The point has been made that many families are paying thousands of pounds of their own money for sign language education—if they can find the teachers—so that they can communicate with their children. I do not believe that that is acceptable.

When I undertook a report for the Council of Europe, I discovered that the policies in Scandinavia meant that interpreters were readily available and that in most Scandinavian countries as soon as a child was diagnosed as deaf, free tuition in sign language was offered to the child and their family. I commend that as a practice that should be available to people in this country.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

The reason that is so important, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, is that any form of communication in early years is critical to the life outcomes of children later in their life. Does he therefore agree that this is something that the Government should be looking at very hard indeed?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

Indeed. The number of deaf children has diminished in recent years and in some ways that is a good thing. We have rubella vaccination and other measures, but deafness will not be eliminated. Congenital deafness or unexplained deafness in newborn children happens, and diseases such as meningitis can lead to deafness in infancy, so there will always be some deaf people in our community and they need to be adequately supported.

Although cochlear implants have made an impressive contribution, they are not a cure. There is evidence now of children who were given cochlear implants 15 years ago not coping brilliantly in the mainstream, as people had hoped. They are still deaf; they just have a very sophisticated hearing aid. We went through a generation assuming that we had solved the problem. We have not. We have made a contribution to alleviating it, which is not the same thing.

I commend the previous Government and the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), who in response to a Prime Minister’s question, found resources within the Department for Education to set up a pilot project called I-Sign which ran in Devon and Merseyside to provide support to deaf parents and children, and led to the creation of more sign language interpreters and a very much stronger support network in those two areas. That pilot was a success and the present Prime Minister has acknowledged that fact, but the scheme has not yet been rolled out nationally. When he responds, I am sure the Minister will report that the Government have taken it forward, which I welcome, but I would love to believe that we will get to a point where that is the national standard.

The step change in sign language that we need could be driven by technical innovations. The Minister responsible for communications in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has been actively engaged with the telecommunications industry to try to develop video relay services. BT and, this week Sky, announced that sign language-using customers wishing to communicate with Sky or with BT can do so using a video relay service. Most deaf people I know who talk about video relay services say, “I don’t want a video relay service to talk to BT. I want a video relay service to talk to my mum, my boss or other people.” That system is established right across America, and it is hugely successful. I hope that we can find a way to achieve that, because it would make a huge contribution to communication. It would also lead to a rapid expansion in the provision of sign language interpreters, because they would have a reliable source of income. I commend the Government for what they have done so far but urge them to come up with a definitive solution that will make the difference.

Our attitudes towards sign language communication and spoken language communication are quite different. The Department for Work and Pensions gave sign language legal recognition, or definition, 10 years ago, which was hailed as a breakthrough, but it is not recognised across government, so that is another challenge for the Government. They recognise Cornish, Welsh and Gaelic, which receive huge resources, yet British sign language, which is an indigenous, created language—indeed, sign language itself was invented in Scotland—is not supported. For some people it is their only language. I know of no Welsh or Gaelic speakers—I do not know that there are any Cornish speakers—who do not also speak English, but there are sign language users who do not communicate in English. We do not support them in the same way we support people who use minority spoken languages. Baroness Howe of Idlicote has tabled an amendment to the Children and Families Bill to try to bring such support forward, so the issue might come back to this House.

I know that the Minister has done some extremely good work and have heard many people in the industry commend him strongly for it. However, like everybody else, he is a cog in a machine that cannot always deliver everything we want as fast as we want it and across the piece. I hope that he will tell us what the Government are doing. I do not expect him to say, “Yes, of course we will adopt all those things,” but we do want champions in the Government who are prepared to drive them forward and who recognise that it is simply not right to leave out a whole section of the community who have real and identifiable needs for which there are practical solutions, not all of which cost a huge amount of money, but which could transform their life attainment. They could also provide economic benefits, because the vast majority of deaf people either cannot get a job or, when they get into the jobs market, get one well below their skills and standards, so they are inevitably a drain on the community. They also suffer a much higher proportion of mental illness. Supporting them will have an economic benefit as well as improving the quality of their lives.

I have spent 30 years campaigning in this House. In many ways I feel frustrated at how little we have achieved. I acknowledge the steps that have been taken, but when I remember what I saw in Finland and Sweden and compare it with what I see in this country, it seems a real shame that the United Kingdom cannot do more to transform the lives of deaf people in our country.

We had been pioneers in this regard. Donaldson’s school in Edinburgh led the way in developing sign language. The ironic twist—this is my final point—is that when Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet came from America to find out how to set up a school to teach deaf children in Boston, the Donaldson’s institute said that it was not prepared to share its teaching mechanism with him. In despair, he found that there was a seminary in Paris teaching deaf children. He ended up taking a squad of teachers from Paris to America, which is why American deaf people use a sign language based on French sign language, rather than British sign language. We invented sign language, but we have not always led the way in innovating and establishing it.

I challenge this Government, and any Government who come after them, to say, “We will no longer leave deaf people behind. We can transform their lives.” The resources are not great and the mechanisms are clearly understood, so let us just do it.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) on securing this important and well-informed debate. I take this opportunity, as others have done, to thank him for his dedication and commitment as founder and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on deafness and for his assiduous campaigning for the recognition of British sign language. I know from attending and speaking at the Signature conference that he chaired last year how his inspiring work and unstinting efforts have led to a growing recognition of the support required to help deaf children and young people achieve their potential.

I would also like to recognise the tireless work that the National Deaf Children’s Society does to support deaf children and their families. It manages to balance working with my Department on projects such as I-Sign with powerful campaigning to hold Government both local and national to account. The 51,000 signatures received in support of holding this debate are testament to this campaigning, and to the importance of getting support for special educational needs right.

A whole number of pertinent points and issues have been raised by hon. Members from all parties about attainment, funding, access, support, data, inspection and the wider special educational need reforms. In the short time that I have, I will do my best to address as many of those points as possible, but where I fail to do so, I will endeavour to write to hon. Members to make sure that they have a full response to the questions and points that they have raised.

The Government are clear that the most important service for all children and young people is high-quality teaching. That is why we have ensured that funding is protected, maintaining the amount per pupil at the same cash level this year as last year. In this context, a number of hon. Members rightly raised concerns about the attainment gap between deaf children and their peers. That is a key indicator of whether deaf children are receiving high-quality teaching.

Although we must see further progress in this area, we should recognise the enormous progress that has been made so far. In 2011-12, 71% of deaf children achieved five or more A* to C grades at GCSE compared with just 43% in 2007-08. For non-SEN pupils, the figures are 90% and 75% respectively. Over that period, deaf pupils progressed at approximately twice the rate of their peers, closing the attainment gap significantly—a testament to the pupils themselves, as well as to the work of sensory support services across the country. Improvements in teaching practice and technological advances mean that deaf children are now far more likely to achieve their potential than five years ago.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) rightly raised concerns about the slight decline in good GCSE passes over the past year. We must, of course, be alert to that, but it is important to note that progress in those subjects has also increased markedly over the past four years: 37% of deaf pupils now achieve that standard, compared to 28% in 2007-08. However, that is still not good enough. Clearly, we all want to see progress continue. We are committed to improving the training that teachers and school leaders receive to help them identify where pupils with hearing loss face barriers to learning and to offer appropriate support, an issued raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) and by the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann), who speaks with such authority, based on his own personal experiences.

The National Scholarship Fund provides funding of up to £3,500 for teachers’ postgraduate qualifications and training, including specialist training for teachers of the deaf. Funding of £2,000 is available to support teaching assistants and support staff to improve their skills in SEN. Some 600 teachers have achieved or are working towards a qualification related to SEN and a further 500 have applied for the current funding round. We have also worked with the NDCS to update and increase schools’ access to information on deaf-friendly teaching and on specific issues such as managing the transition to secondary school and teaching phonics for pupils with a hearing impairment. As we reform the SEN system we will work with the National Sensory Impairment Partnership—NatSIP—to provide advice and information to schools on effective support for deaf pupils.

As well as taking steps to improve the quality of education, we are taking significant steps to secure access to it for deaf children and others with disabilities and SEN. Under the Equalities Act 2010, schools and other education providers must make reasonable adjustments for disabled children and young people to alleviate any substantial disadvantage they experience because of their disability, and they must not discriminate against them. If, after those adjustments have been made, children and young people need special educational provision or specialist services, the duties that schools, local authorities and others have in relation to special educational needs come into play. The Children and Families Bill, which includes our reforms to this area, is currently being debated in the other place. I shall say more about those changes a little later.

The NDCS is concerned that, as things stand, services for deaf children risk being undermined by cuts. We have heard some examples of that this afternoon. I want to reassure the House that we have ensured that all local authorities have as much funding for SEN in 2013-14 as they had in 2012-13. The NDCS acknowledges that the Government have protected funding for vulnerable learners. Local authorities decide what SEN services to provide for children and young people, including services for deaf children, and how much to spend on them, from the funding that we supply.

The services that local authorities typically provide, either directly or by commissioning other providers, include services for visual, hearing and physical impairment; specific learning difficulties; speech, language and communication; profound and severe learning difficulties; and autism. Local authorities are reporting that they are spending no less on their SEN services this year than they spent last year. Through their local funding formula, they also include in delegated schools budgets a clear amount of funding intended to meet the needs of pupils with additional needs, including those with SEN or disabilities. Special schools and other schools with special units often use their budgets to develop particular specialist services, including those for pupils with hearing impairments. I have seen that for myself in Springfield special school in Crewe in my constituency. Where necessary, schools receive extra top-up funding from their local authority for the additional support costs of pupils with the greatest needs.

We are committed to ensuring that the needs of children with SEN are met. We have been clear with local authorities—I re-emphasis the point now—that they should prioritise vital front-line services for vulnerable children. However, we should not forget that the current financial climate, as Members have acknowledged today, means that everyone in Government, both local and national, has to make tough decisions to ensure that the limited resources are spent most effectively.

We know that it can be challenging for local authorities to provide services for young people whose needs are less common, so we are encouraging them to work together on such provision. I heard the point my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) made about regional commissioning, and I will certainly look at that as part of the work we are doing and the reforms we are undertaking. Where services have to be changed, that should be done with a careful assessment of the impact on families, and those assessments should involve the families.

With regard to specialist support, local authorities support parents of deaf children to communicate with them through teachers of the deaf and sensory support services. The Department for Education is working with voluntary and community groups to enable local areas to benchmark the support they provide to deaf children and to access tools and information on the most effective approaches. That includes the £1.1 million we have given to NatSIP to carry out a benchmarking exercise.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and others mentioned the importance of early support. I hope that they will be pleased to hear that we have also funded the development of an early support guide for parents of deaf children and the I-Sign project to develop a family sign language programme. We are continuing to fund the I-Sign consortium to build on the learning from that project and improve the availability of sign language support for parents and families.

As the NDCS has set out, most deaf children attend mainstream schools, some with additional specialist units offering support on site. Assessments on how well those schools perform will be made as part of Ofsted’s school inspection regime. The new Ofsted inspection frameworks, introduced in September 2012, place a clear emphasis on meeting the needs of disabled pupils and pupils with SEN and considering the quality of teaching and the progress made by those pupils.

I know that the NDCS and Members are calling for an alternative approach in which Ofsted would inspect the local authority services that work with schools to support deaf pupils, and there is some initial appeal in that, but the same argument could be made for pupils with autism, speech and language needs or dyslexia. However, I understand that this is part of a wider question about the inspection of the reformed SEN system, and I expect it to continue to be discussed as the Children and Families Bill progresses.

Aside from the role that Ofsted could play, I want to stress that the SEN reforms will preserve and enhance legal protections for families who want to challenge councils through their involvement in determining local provisions. The two deaf young people who are directly advising my Department on our SEN reforms have made it clear that they want to see reforms which provide legal protections; establish a better system for identifying need and commissioning services across education, health and social care; ensure that the services provided match local needs as accurately as possible; and ensure that families do not have to battle to get those services. That is what our reforms are intended to do.

I want to leave a few moments for my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon to close the debate. It is clear that this has been a thoughtful, sincere and passionate debate that has provided us all with an opportunity not only to celebrate excellence where it exists, including in Swindon, but to challenge and question what more could be done to ensure that deaf children and young people get the right support at the right time so that they can flourish and thrive. I will take away the many excellent points and suggestions made by hon. Members, particularly my right hon. Friend, and consider them carefully as our reforms move closer towards implementation. The Government’s message is clear: we share his ambition and desire to give deaf children the best possible start in life and will continue to work with him in that shared endeavour.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. If I am to put the Question before the motion lapses, I need to do so at 4.59 pm.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I thank the Minister for his constructive and courteous response and for undertaking to follow up on those points in detail. I thank all Members who have contributed to this well-informed debate. The Minister has responded to the point about Ofsted, but there is a worry that although SEN might be maintained, switches could take place that disadvantage deaf people. We want there to be special attention to ensure that deaf children are not disadvantaged. I take the point about other categories, but I think that we are entitled at least to ask for a process by which that can be done.

On the regional issue, which was also a good point, I note that in Sweden schools for the deaf are provided in every region and parents have the right to choose whether they send their children to a special school or a mainstream one. I believe that is something we should address.

We have had a very good debate. The Minister is very engaged in the subject and we look forward to working with him. I also thank the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) for his constructive comments. This is something that we can do together, and with real commitment we can improve the quality of life for all deaf children.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House recognises the importance of services for deaf children and young people and acknowledges the wide attainment gap; further recognises that communications support for deaf children and their parents is vital for social development and educational progress; acknowledges that the Government has stated there is an expectation that funding for vulnerable learners is protected, but is concerned about recent evidence uncovered by the National Deaf Children’s Society which shows that in 2013-14 over a third of local authorities plan to cut education services for deaf children; urges the Government to take steps to hold local authorities to account and support parents in doing so, including by asking Ofsted to inspect these vital services, improving access to communication support including sign language, and strengthening the Children and Families Bill currently before Parliament; and further urges the Government to deliver and implement reform of special educational needs.