Government and Democracy Education

Marie Goldman Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[John Slinger]

I will come to that point, because I think that the review is a golden opportunity.

The commission confirmed what I and others here know: too many young people do not understand how to participate in our democratic processes, and their lack of motivation is due to a lack of knowledge about parties and candidates. If we want young people to engage more in elections, for their sake and ours, we must work harder to ensure they understand and value our democracy.

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman pointed out that this is UK Parliament Week. Last week, I was delighted to visit Great Baddow high school in my constituency to speak to students who were preparing for a debate that they would be taking part in as part of UK Parliament Week. They asked me lots of wonderful questions on diverse subjects. I have often been into local schools to talk about government, but it often becomes apparent that students do not know anything at all about local government, and yet local government affects their lives on a day-to-day basis—sometimes much more than this place. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that local government, alongside central Government, should form part of this education?

[John Slinger]

I wholeheartedly agree. It is critical that we educate our young people about the different tiers of government and the responsibilities of elected representatives within them.

I will touch briefly on the history of citizenship in our education system. Since 2002, citizenship has been a statutory foundation national curriculum subject at key stages 3 and 4. Luke Brown, a teacher at Lawrence Sheriff school in Rugby, told me:

“A big concern is the increasingly limited time given to Citizenship and, therefore, politics.”

Citizenship remains a non-statutory programme of study at key stages 1 and 2—or primary, to use the old parlance—where, as teachers tell me, a similar situation ensues, and other priorities all too often drown out citizenship. According to the 2018 Lords report, citizenship peaked between 2009 and 2011, and declined particularly under the last Government’s curriculum review in 2013. The report found that

“citizenship was never fully embedded into the education system”.

The same happened with other subjects that were, in my view, wrongly regarded by the previous Government as subsidiary. The English baccalaureate, introduced in 2010, did not include citizenship. Furthermore, there has been a substantial decline in the number of students studying the citizenship GCSE and the number of specialist teachers.

With our new Government’s curriculum review, we have a golden opportunity to put that right. Like all MPs, I make a big effort to visit as many primary and secondary schools as I can. The biggest privilege and—dare I say it?—challenge of being an MP is not speaking in Chambers like this one but answering questions from young people in schools. When I visit schools, I find that young people are generally interested in politics. For example, the children of Paddox primary school in my constituency were hugely excited about the competition that staff are running about politics, with the prize being a tour of Parliament. A constituent of mine, Ian Dewes, the CEO of the Odyssey Collaborative Trust, said that Parliament’s education team “were fantastic” and pointed out that such visits helped to

“break down class and social barriers.”

When children of Long Lawford primary school welcomed me and the early years Minister for a visit, it was clear that their teachers had educated them well about the political system. Those are exemplars of best practice, but they should be standard across the whole country.

I would be grateful to hear from my hon. Friend the Minister about how her Department will ensure a more coherent, better resourced system that gives these subjects the higher priority that they deserve. I hope, first, that she will consider confirming citizenship as a statutory subject in the national curriculum at all stages, not just key stages 3 and 4; as with literacy, the younger we start, the deeper the understanding. Secondly, will she provide guidance to all schools about what they are expected to teach and resources to do so, including lesson packs and training for non-specialist teachers? Thirdly, will she ensure coherence and common standards across the entire maintained sector? Fourthly, will she reform progress 8 to ensure that any new system of measuring schools gives the same value to citizenship as to other national curriculum foundation GCSE subjects? Finally, will she take action to incentivise the training of specialist citizenship teachers?

Another part of learning about government and democracy should, of course, be participating in it within school and the wider world, as other hon. Members have said.

SEND Provision: East of England

Marie Goldman Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) for securing this very important debate today. It is my absolute pleasure to represent the Liberal Democrats on this important issue. It is filling up my inbox, and I know that it is filling up the inboxes of other hon. Members, both here and not here today.

I would like to start by expanding on an issue that has been raised in this debate, but I think a bit more information needs to be put out about it. That is the issue of tribunals and what is happening with them. We have talked a lot about how difficult it is for parents to get EHCPs for their children, but having to take a local authority to the first-tier tribunal is such an arduous task that no parent should have to go through it. They have to wait on average a year to get an appointment at a tribunal and it is costing them tens of thousands of pounds, in many instances, to get to that point in the first place. They are employing solicitors who have to battle with the local authorities, and they get to the point where they have given up and have to go to a tribunal. Then they wait their year and get their tribunal date, and then they are often faced with legally representing themselves, because they have exhausted their own resources, but they are battling against local authorities that are not just using solicitors or barristers but King’s counsel in many cases, to fight against parents who are just trying to get what their children desperately need.

[Clive Efford in the Chair]

Even worse is the figure that has already come out in this debate but is worth underlining. Despite parents not being legally represented and despite local authorities using barristers and KCs to fight parents—what sort of system is it where that is happening?—local authorities lose 98% of cases. Local authorities are using public money to fight parents and losing. Then even if a judge, through the first-tier tribunal, has made an order about what the EHCP should contain—if a parent is lucky enough to even have an EHCP at that point—in cases in my constituency and, I am sure, in other constituencies, that provision is still not being delivered, even when ordered by the tribunal. We have examples of parents who have to go to judicial review to make the local authorities do what they are legally bound to do but are not doing. We have to strengthen the consequences for local authorities that are not doing what they are supposed to be doing as set out in law, because the system is not working in that situation at the moment. I ask the Minister to address that.

This matters because while we are waiting for judicial review and for tribunals, the children who are affected are growing up. Children have this uncanny knack of getting older, and as they get older, they need more resources and different resources. However, a parent in my constituency said, “But Marie, when I went to the annual review, the officer at the council said to me, ‘Every time we meet, you ask for something different.’” And she said, “Well, yes, because my child has grown up, he is now older, and he needs something different from what was in the last review.” As much as we may be shocked by comments like that from officers working for local councils, there are many, many officers who want to do the very best for children, but they are stuck in such awful situations, in which they are not provided with the resources that they need.

Although a lot has been said about EHCPs, the special educational needs system is not just about EHCPs. There are about 1.6 million children with special educational needs or disabilities in the east of England—we must remember that we are talking about disabilities as well, not just neurological conditions—and only 4.8% of them, or just under 48,000, have EHCPs. The rest of them are living with SEND but do not have EHCPs. We must make sure that we cater for them as well.

I am conscious of the time and want to mention the funding cuts that have happened since 2010. The School Cuts website is instructive on the subject. It tells me, for example, that one high school in my constituency has received a funding cut of £1,201 per pupil since 2010. Another has seen a cut of £1,174 per pupil. It goes on and on. A special school in my constituency takes the biscuit, with a cut of £4,815 per pupil since 2010. Schools are having to do more with less, and we must address that.

I want to bring out the voices of parents. Recently in my constituency I met 24 parents and grandparents who turned up to a meeting to tell me about their problems with the special educational needs system. They told me many things. They told me what could be done to make the system better in ways that would not cost the earth. We know that there are economic challenges ahead, so let us look for solutions that do not necessarily have to focus on money.

One of the things the parents and grandparents raised was the transition when a child goes from primary school to secondary school. We need to make that transition easier for pupils with SEND who need that bit of extra time to settle in and understand the new system. Can we put in place a better system of transition that gives them extra time without all the other children around?

The parents and grandparents told me about the blanket approach to attendance that many schools take. They told me about 100% attendance awards and how cruel they are for children with special educational needs and disabilities, who often have to attend medical appointments during school time. They can never get that 100% attendance rate and never receive the award that they see their fellow pupils getting. It is cruel and discriminatory.

The parents and grandparents told me about schools that are locking toilet doors during class times so that children cannot go to the toilet. That makes it very difficult for someone who has a physical condition that means they have to go to the toilet.

One of the people who came to speak to me was a special educational needs co-ordinator. They told me that it is not mandatory to have SENCOs on the senior leadership team, and how they are often teaching full time while also doing the SENCO role. They told me that they have no protected time to look after children with special educational needs, work out what is best for them and help them. In fact, parents told me that they believe SENCOs are just a name on a piece of paper for local authorities.

How does all this impact children? Children are often demoralised when they leave school. A parent told me that all their child’s energy was going into school and it left nothing—no energy afterwards for anything else. One parent said, “SEND shouldn’t just be a bolt-on.” I echo what other Members have said: SEND should be an integral part of education.

I could go on and on about local authorities not doing annual reviews, not replying to parents when they write to them, or sending encrypted emails that disappear after 40 days so that parents have no permanent record of what they have been told. I could talk about evidence disappearing and about dyslexia not being accepted as a diagnosis—as if that is not a thing—but I want to spend a little time talking about solutions.

One solution, which could be cost-free, is being more transparent. EHCPs should be issued within 20 weeks. In my local authority, Essex, 1% are issued within 20 weeks. When parents are waiting, in week 19, for that email to drop in their inbox, anxious and stressed, after having fought so hard to get to the point where they will finally get the provision their children need, deserve and are thankfully entitled to, and it does not arrive, that is incredibly stressful. Yet the local authority knows that there is no chance of that email arriving in that time. They know that the average wait time is probably 30, 40, 50 weeks, or even longer in some cases. Tell parents that. Alleviate their suffering just a little bit. It will not fix the problem, but it is a free option. Local authorities already know the figures—make them publish them.

The Liberal Democrats want to see a centralised national body for SEND, which would end the postcode lottery of funding. Lots more can be done, but there are things we can do without having to provide funds.

SEND Provision

Marie Goldman Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burgon]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend, because early intervention is so important, both in giving adequate and timely support to young people and, in the long run, in keeping the costs down; without early intervention, the problems that children face can only get worse and worse. The number needing more support through an education, health and care plan has more than doubled, but the required resources have, as others have said, simply not followed.

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for this debate about an issue that is so important and has filled my inbox over many months, as I am sure is the case for other hon. Members here. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that the eligibility changed in 2014 with the Children and Families Act; it added an extra 11 years when it comes to the children and young people who could be included. Does he agree that it was a complete failure of subsequent Governments not to put in the extra resources to match the additional number of years? That has led to a perverse system in which we now see local authorities battling with parents—using not just normal barristers but King’s Counsel, so sure are they of their righteousness in their battle. With the help of barristers, including KCs, they are battling parents who are often not represented legally and have to represent themselves. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is perverse and should never have happened?

[Richard Burgon]

I thank the hon. Member: that is a very important point, and I certainly agree. I will turn later in my speech to the subject of the tribunals. When we look at the statistics on the outcome of the tribunal hearings, that underlines her point very strongly indeed.

I will make a bit of progress if that is okay. If others wish to seek to intervene, I will take some interventions again later, before the end of my speech. Greater need and inadequate funding are a recipe for disaster, and a disaster is exactly what has happened. In my 10 minutes, I cannot touch on every example of this crisis—