Children and Families Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

Part 3 of the Bill introduces a much stronger framework for supporting children and young people with special educational needs. These reforms have been widely welcomed, and I am grateful to Members in all parts of the House for their interest in and support for them. We can be sure in the knowledge that the Bill has been significantly strengthened since draft clauses were published last autumn.

We have all met constituents who have had to battle to get the special educational support that their child needs. These reforms are ambitious; they aim to ensure that in future, children, young people and their parents are at the heart of the system, and that special educational provision builds around them, instead of asking them to adjust to the system. It will not always work perfectly in every case, but the pathfinders that I have visited have convinced me that we have a really exciting reform under way—one that challenges local authorities to design a system around those who use it, rather than conform to existing structures and processes. The reforms are also ambitious as regards personal aspirations. The new system will support young people through further education and training, up to the age of 25 for those who need it, and focus much more strongly on independent living and helping them to find paid employment. The provisions extend support to younger years as well, so that children are supported as soon as their needs are identified, from birth onwards, instead of having to wait until they reach school to be assessed.

The reforms provide the foundation for a system in which children and young people’s needs are picked up early; parents know what services they can reasonably expect their local schools, colleges, local authority, and health and social care services to provide, without having to fight for the information; those with more severe or complex needs have a co-ordinated assessment built around them and a single education, health and care plan from birth to 25; and parents and young people have greater control over their support. I believe these ambitions are shared across the House.

We had a wide-ranging, constructive debate on Second Reading, and the Committee sittings were passionate, knowledgeable and helpful. I hope that today we can build on the broad consensus that has characterised the debate to date.

We have also listened carefully to the views expressed by Members of the House, parents and young people, and many of the organisations supporting them, and we have acted to improve the SEN provisions following pre-legislative scrutiny and as the Bill has made its way through the House.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

The Minister may recall that he kindly met me to discuss my particular concerns about children who had suffered from cancer and perhaps missed quite a large amount of school but did not fit in with the SEN criteria. What level of support could they expect under these proposals?

[Mr Timpson]

I recall the constructive meeting that I had with the hon. Gentleman and he will remember that I gave a commitment then to work with him and with organisations with which he has been working with great astuteness to see what more we can do through the code of practice and other means to provide the additional support that we all want to see so that no child, particularly a child with cancer, misses out on the opportunity to fulfil their potential, and I will continue to work with him to achieve that.

Following the Education Committee’s thorough and well-argued report—another one—in December, we amended the Bill in several ways. By virtue of clause 19, we introduced a requirement for local authorities when exercising a function under part 3 to have regard to the views, wishes and feelings of a child and his or her parent, or of the young person, and the importance of them participating as fully as possible in decisions, and being provided with information and support to enable them to do so—an important set of transcending principles.

We have clearly specified the right of parents and young people themselves to request an assessment for special educational needs, to remove any uncertainty. We have ensured that young people on apprenticeships can receive support through an education, health and care plan. We have enabled independent special schools and specialist colleges to apply to be on a list of institutions for which parents and young people with education, health and care plans could express a preference. We have changed our approach to mediation so that parents and young people must consider mediation but do not have to take it up and can go straight to appeal to the tribunal if they wish without prejudicing their position.

To ensure that services are responsive to families’ needs we added a requirement for local authorities to involve children, young people and parents in reviewing the local offer and to publish their comments about the local offer and what action they will take to respond, and we made provision for the SEN code of practice to be approved by Parliament by way of negative resolution.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

It is good to follow the Chair of the Select Committee. I hope the constructive and cross-party description that he has given of the passage of the Bill so far means that, as the Bill goes into the other House, many of the amendments that we have discussed today, which clearly need to be made, will be made.

Before he spoke, we heard two strong—including one long—speeches on special educational needs. I am not going to speak up for children with special educational needs. Instead I would like to speak up for children with specific health conditions and, in particular, to lend my support to new clause 8, which was first tabled in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and now stands in the name of the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders).

Four years ago, I met an inspiring young woman called Emma Smith. She was 12 years old, from Dalton in Rotherham, and I was her MP. She was on a lobby for Diabetes UK to the House. I met her here, and met her and her family at home. I also met a couple of other young children and students at school in Rotherham who were suffering from diabetes. They described a lack of recognition and appreciation by staff at school of their condition and a lack of knowledge about what they had to do to manage it for themselves. They described a suspicion, sometimes, of the needles they had to use to inject insulin. Occasionally there was nowhere for them to do those injections during the school day. They also spoke of friends of theirs with similar problems who had been forbidden from eating or going to the toilet during lessons when they needed to because of their condition. I pledged my support to Emma Smith and her campaign, as I did to the ten-minute rule Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), which he introduced around that time. I thought that my hon. Friend could not be here today, which is why I am in his place, but I am glad to see that he has come into the Chamber.

[Mark Tami]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that it is not just about staff? We need to ensure that children—particularly primary school children, who can be scared if they do not know what is going on—have explained to them why a child has to be treated in a certain way. Children can be frightened and misunderstand what is happening.

[John Healey]

My good and hon. Friend knows exactly what he is talking about and he is right. This is not simply about staff; it is about other students and pupils understanding better the conditions and health problems that some children have to cope with and, often, being supportive as a result. I know my hon. Friend speaks from direct experience of such things.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sanders]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. I also congratulate him on the ten-minute rule Bill on this subject that he introduced a little while ago.

Last week, I attended a diabetes event, and I heard an account from a parent from the north of England that succinctly summed up the experience of all too many parents, wherever they live. Her son was just starting primary school and, in the previous July, the diabetic specialist nurse had visited the school to put a necessary care plan in place. It was clear on the first day of school that the plan was inadequate. According to the parent, it was not worth the paper it was written on, and was certainly not suitable for a four-year-old. Importantly, it stated that the child should test his own blood levels—something he had never done before and something that no one would expect a four-year-old to have to do. The plan also had no guidelines for emergencies.

Despite the parents providing a new plan for the school, the child’s first six months of school were filled with phone calls home and teachers holding his hand throughout the day, even taking him out of the classroom frequently as though he were a ticking time bomb. This caused a massive amount of stress and inconvenience to the parents. Schools need to recognise that, beyond the health condition, these are normal children who need to be treated normally but with sensible and reasonable adjustments and awareness to maintain the normality as much as possible.

[Mark Tami]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the so-called special treatment that such children get, involving missing lessons and sometimes taking days off school, can sometimes lead other children to believe that they are different, and that that perception of special treatment can lead to bullying?

[Mr Sanders]

Indeed; I referred to the danger of bullying earlier. Diabetic children do not need to be taken out of class; they simply need a hygienic environment in which to test their blood sugar levels during the day, and to be allowed to eat in the classroom, or go outside to eat, in order to boost their blood sugar levels. It helps everyone if the staff understand those needs and explain them to other pupils. In that way, the children can learn that many of us will have a medical condition—not necessarily diabetes—at some time in our life. There is a whole spectrum of medical conditions, and treating children who suffer from them separately is worse than providing for them within the mainstream and within the normal school settings. All that is needed is a willingness for schools to put in the effort and to look at best practice while listening to parents. A reminder in the Bill that that is important would go some way towards reassuring tens of thousands of anxious parents.