Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Tuesday 12th July 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

62: After Clause 46, insert the following new Clause—
“Funding for specialist education services for children and young people with sensory impairment(1) An English local authority must secure that provision of specialist education services to children and young people with sensory impairment and their parents is sufficient to facilitate the development of the child or young person with sensory impairment and to help him or her achieve the best possible educational and other outcomes.(2) Specialist education services include support to the parent of a child with sensory impairment, following the point of identification of any sensory impairment.(3) The Secretary of State must ensure that funding to local authorities for provision of services under this section is sufficient.(4) In discharging their duty under subsection (1), a local authority must have regard to the special educational needs and disability code of practice and any other guidance given from time to time by the Secretary of State.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to introduce a new duty for local authorities and the Secretary of State to ensure there is sufficient funding for specialist education services for children and young people with sensory impairments in line with the special educational needs and disability code of practice under the Children and Families Act 2014.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the National Deaf Children’s Society for its support on this amendment.

I said in Committee that the Bill requires improvements if the Government are to meet their ambitions around inclusion for children with SEND. I still feel that very much to be the case. It will also still need improvement if the Government are to reach the target that they have set for 90% of children to achieve expected outcomes in reading, writing and maths by 2030.

In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, rightly highlighted the existing duties of local authorities to ensure that appropriate support is available to meet the needs of children and young people with sensory impairment, as they do for all children with special educational needs. We did not hear in Committee how those local authorities’ duties will fit with the changed educational landscape that the Bill and other changes in the schools White Paper and SEND Green Paper proposes.

Focusing on the flexibility that they have on how they use high-needs funding to meet those needs misses a vital point: around 78% of school-age deaf children are attending mainstream schools, and the vast majority of them do not have an education, health and care plan. The support for these children is not cast in stone in a legally binding EHCP. It is very much coming under local authorities’ general duties under the Children and Families Act 2014 and the SEND code of practice, for all children with special educational needs who do not meet the criteria for EHCPs. Those children without EHCPs do not automatically receive top-up funding from the high-needs funding allocation. The help that these children receive will be funded by a mix from within the school’s notional SEN budget and outside support services, which are usually provided and funded by the local authority.

With budgets stretched and higher needs funding having to provide for more EHCPs and more specialist claimants, it is this support to mainstream schools which has been cut back and sadly has resulted in them often being totally lacking. For instance, there has been a 17% decline in the number of teachers of the deaf since 2011, a trend which shows no signs of being turned around. We surely need to reverse that trend if the Government are going to meet the aims of inclusion and keep more SEND children in mainstream schools.

I think many will rightly view this new clause as very much part of a wider debate as to how we are going to ensure these services are delivered and who will pay for and provide the specialist roles, such as teachers of the deaf, who support schools, teachers and children. Nothing in the Bill, in the schools White Paper or in the SEND Green Paper protects or enhances these services which are critical for mainstream inclusion. That is why I feel a special duty is required for local authorities and the Secretary of State to ensure there is sufficient funding for specialist educational services for children and young people with sensory impairments.

The Special Educational Consortium supports the amendment because of its concerns about the funding of specialist support services for children and young people with a sensory impairment; 42 organisations have indicated their support for this amendment. The erosion of funding for specialist support services surely needs to be halted and services need to be restored to ensure that children get the support they need to enable them to learn and make good progress. I beg to move my amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely, and I invite her to speak.

--- Later in debate ---

I thank noble Lords once again for raising the issues within this debate. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, feels able to withdraw his Amendment 62, and that other noble Lords will not move theirs.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for a very full response. On my Amendment 62, I noted with interest what she had to say. There were two key points: first, that you do not need statutory change because local authorities already have existing duties and, secondly, that the issue about EHC plans can be overcome, because the additional funding is not dependent on those plans—I understand that. The problem we have is that, at the moment, local authorities are not really following the duties they are expected to carry out, mainly because they just do not have the resources to do it. One way or another, this must be tackled, and for parliamentarians, the law is the way we do this—through amendments like these. It is very frustrating if the response is, “You don’t need to change the law because local authorities already have the existing duties”, when we all know that local authorities are failing to provide the necessary support.

There was a fascinating debate on the other amendments. In a sense, I agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said about this issue regarding the number of young people receiving anti-depressants, which is pretty frightening. I accept that it is unfair to place all responsibility on schools. This is rather like the police force; so many of its issues are mental health issues. Clearly we need the health service to step up to the plate. Again, the Minister referred to additional resources going in and an access target, but the NHS has an awfully long way to go to provide the kind of mental health support needed, particularly for young people. We all know the frustrations for parents and young people in getting access to NHS services and the long waits they often have to suffer. On the other hand, schools could be more sympathetic to parents when their children have mental health issues. On Monday, we will come back to the issues of school attendance and home-educated children. When you talk to parents, a recurring reason that they are home educating their children is because their children have mental health challenges to which the school is utterly unsympathetic. This is the issue we will continually come back to.

This will only be achieved through partnership. The noble Baroness, Lady Penn, knows all about the Health and Care Act and integrated care partnerships. I still think we need to get schools around that table to get a much more concerted approach at local level to resolve some of these very difficult issues; parents and children are often at the end of their tether in seeking support where it is not forthcoming. Having said that, I thought it was a really valuable debate and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 62 withdrawn.