Children and Families Bill

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Grand Committee

In other words, there is a great deal to be done, it seems to me, to educate those who are responsible, not just for the initial assessment, but for subsequent child development, so that they can monitor all children as they progress through the 0 to 25 pathway. Conditions such as ADHD, which can actually be treated, ought to be identified much earlier than after the second exclusion from school. My reason for including it is, to repeat what I said earlier to the Minister, that I believe that before any regulations or instructions are issued to local authorities and others as to what is be done in this area, there ought to be urgent consultation with those who have been studying it to make certain that what they have learned and gleaned, and what they are increasingly understanding, is incorporated in whatever comes out. Things have moved on since my noble friend Lady Warnock did her marvellous work, and there is a great deal which ought to be incorporated. I was extremely distressed when this was raised in the other House and was guillotined before it was properly discussed. I do not think that that is something that we ought to do in this House. I beg to move.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 77 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hughes of Stretford and to Amendments 82, 83, 84 and 85 in my name. Before doing so, I add my support to Amendment 70A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. For me, this amendment represents an important first step in reforming the exclusion policy in schools so far as people with special educational needs are concerned. Some 70% of children excluded from school in England are SEN. That is telling us something: it is a real challenge for us to tackle, and the noble Lord’s amendment at least goes some way to start looking at that. I know from family support workers in south Wales that in some of our cities they are concerned about what they call “soft exclusions”, whereby a child is told, “We don’t want to see you for the next 10 days”, or, “It’s half term next week; we don’t want to see you till we come back after half term”. There is no record kept. This is illegal but it happens, and I fear that young people with learning difficulties are much involved.

In evidence given to the All-Party Group on Autism’s commission on special educational needs, one mother said that she had not been called into school about the behaviour of her autistic son for some considerable time because his teacher was someone who had an autistic child herself and understood the problem. I fear that youngsters with special educational needs are, probably unintentionally, the victims of school exclusion policies, and that is not what we want. I hope that the Minister is minded to welcome this amendment.

I now turn to Amendment 77, which seeks to address the issue of early identification. I know that I am not alone in the Committee in believing that identifying and supporting children with special educational needs as early as possible is the most important factor in improving outcomes. Clause 22 requires local authorities to seek to identify children and young people in their areas who may have special educational needs. Amendment 77 would insert the words “as early as possible”, which most people would believe is common sense—after all, why would we not do that? Why would we not seek this information as early as possible?

The professionals who work with children have a crucial role to play: they are the first educators that the children come into contact with. A number of issues, such as speech and communication problems, developmental delays and behavioural and literacy issues can be better addressed by a good quality early years provider. This means that children start school in a much better position than they would otherwise, and fewer resources are required in later years.

There is evidence, though, to show that the early years workforce is typically the least qualified in the education sector. Reductions in local council budgets have meant that they have cut their training spend for early years staff by 40% in the past three years. This has resulted in many cutting back on early years area SENCOs that they have previously employed to provide advice and training in early years settings. However, the support that they provide is needed now more than ever. A recent Communications Trust project, Talk of the Town, evidenced that across a federation of schools, children and young people’s speech, language and communication needs were under-identified by an average of 40%. The Communications Trust said it,

“remains concerned over how the Bill will ensure that the mechanisms for identification will work in practice across all educational phases and also on local authorities’ ability to identify needs as early as possible, and to respond to these needs”.

The National Deaf Children’s Society, RNIB and Sense are also concerned that overall proposals do not place sufficient emphasis on the importance of early years support for children with sensory impairments and their families.

The Opposition tabled this amendment in the Commons and in response the Minister said:

“One of the things we will consider is whether, and if so how, some of the good practice on the area SENCO role can be reflected in the code of practice”.—[Official Report, Commons, Children and Families Bill, 19/3/13; col. 369.]

I have had a look at the redrafted code of practice, and I cannot see where this is taken forward. Perhaps the Minister, who has considered this in much more detail than I have, can update us on this issue.

I have added my name to Amendment 80, which was tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton, Lady Walmsley and Lady Howarth of Breckland, but, in view of the time, I do not propose to speak to it.

Amendments 82, 83, 84 and 85 would ensure that Clause 24 placed a duty on health services to inform the relevant local authority if a child under compulsory school age may have SEN. These amendments would extend this duty to apply to all children or young people who may have special educational needs, regardless of age. It is important that children do not fall through the net and go unidentified early simply because they do not fall within the specific age group set out in the Bill. Having spent 20 years as a councillor, I remember taking up problems on behalf of constituents, often only to be told, “Sorry, councillor, he or she falls through the net”. Who created the net? We did. We, the legislators, the makers of the rules, want to make sure that in this case the net helps and protects people.

In the other place, the Minister referred to single integrated checks and sought to assure Members that the provisions in the Bill would support the identification of children’s SEN and make the these amendments unnecessary. If that remains the Government’s view, will the Minister rehearse for our benefit the argument that the four amendments are not needed and set out clearly where in the Bill the objectives that these amendments are seeking to realise are covered and catered for?

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. For anyone who knows anything about the system, even in passing, it is brilliantly obvious that we should have had something like Amendment 70A in the Bill. If a child has been excluded twice, it is statistically almost inevitable that there will be a problem, and he or she should be assessed so that the problem can be identified accurately.

We all carry a degree of history with us in this Room. Mine is of dyslexia. The standard way you identify dyslexia is by the difference between spoken and written language. If you cannot speak correctly, the chances of identifying that person as dyslexic go down. We know there is comorbidity. You have to get into the system and look in the round. It is very important.

I have interests to declare. I have used voice recognition technology for years. It requires a degree of use of language verbally to have a way of dealing with that problem. We should thank the noble Lord for bringing to our attention the fact that everything about communication levels starts to come together in the spoken word or the written word. The way these things hang together is always complicated and difficult. It gets more difficult to deal with them the later they are identified.

To say thank you to the Government, I think that Clause 22 is the most radical and brave thing I have seen in a Bill for a while—saying that we will go out and identify those with special educational needs. Most of the special educational needs lobby has been about saying to the educational establishment, “Oi! There’s a problem. Come over here and give us a hand”. I have lost track of the number of times I have had conversations with Members of both Houses of Parliament about dyslexic children and grandchildren: “How do you get the help?”, “Who do you go through?”, “What’s the matter?” and “Do we tell them they have a problem or not?”. Identification here is very important. Making that a stronger duty, despite the fact that it might be difficult, will make the rest of it easier. You cannot help someone if you do not know what the problem is. I very much support this amendment and the sentiment behind it.