Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Lingfield Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lingfield (Con)]

I remind your Lordships of my education interests in the register.

I welcome the general thrust of the Bill. It is only to access that I shall direct my comments today, concerning an area already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, which I fear may receive less attention than other aspects of the Bill. It is an issue that none the less remains extremely important to the students and families to whom it relates: ensuring that higher education students with special educational needs are in the first instance supported in a way that makes the transition from secondary or further education to higher education as smooth as possible, and that subsequently they receive appropriate support so that they are in no way disadvantaged by their special educational needs as they undertake their studies.

I have raised this subject before in your Lordships’ House during the Committee stage of the Children and Families Bill in October 2013. At that point I tabled a number of probing amendments to establish the position of young people who wish to study in higher education and have an education health and care plan. I took some reassurance at the time from the responses to my amendments of the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, who stated:

“We share his ambition … that there should indeed be a seamless transition of support between school and higher education … that young people with SEN and disabilities should reach their full potential, including securing a place at university”.—[Official Report, 30/10/13; col. GC 599.]

However, I remained concerned at the time that the exclusion of higher education from the scope of that primary legislation and its accompanying regulation and guidance would lead to some young people being at an avoidable disadvantage when compared to their peers who do not have a special educational need. These concerns remain, and I hope the Minister will be able to provide some reassurance that this legislation and its regulation and guidance will be very clear on the responsibilities that higher education institutions will have in relation to supporting students with special educational needs.

In doing that, I hope that the Minister will note the needs of that discrete group of young people who have special educational needs but may not have a disability, for these needs may be very different from those of students with disabilities. In this context, it is particularly important to ensure that the scope of the appropriate clauses takes that into account.

In the course of my research, I noted the Equality Challenge Unit report of 2015 makes extensive reference to students with disabilities. However, as far as I can see, there is little, if any, reference within it to education, health and care plans, and limited reference to special educational needs. Similarly, I could not see in the Universities UK report Working in Partnership any clear references to education, health and care plans, and I found limited reference to specific conditions such as autism or dyslexia. So I seek reassurance from the Minister that universities have the right specialist knowledge of the needs of young people with special educational needs, rather than of students with disabilities more generally, and of how those needs can best be met.

In closing, the latter question brings me to an apparent and extremely unfortunate anomaly. Now that further education providers can have taught degree-awarding powers—I welcome this, of course—it appears that a young person studying, say, a BA (Hons) in English in a further education institution will continue to receive the protection of an education, health and care plan, while a young person studying exactly the same degree in a higher education institution is no longer entitled to such a plan. For such a degree course, it is difficult to see why and how the support needs for the same student would differ to any great extent between an FE and an HE institution.

If this anomaly really is the case, I hope I am not alone in finding such a situation very difficult to justify. Any attempt to rectify it ought to level up and not take away the protections that those students in FE currently enjoy, and I look forward in due time to hearing the Government’s response.