Academies Bill [Lords]

Mel Stride Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, and there are many deficiencies in the wider SEN system. My concern is that if the issue of low incidence SEN is not defined properly, the situation will be made much worse. In some respects this is not a party political issue, because we are all here to do the best that we can for children with SEN and their parents, whose lives are a struggle without making things worse.

We have lost good specialist services over the years, when funding was delegated to schools but they did not buy the services back. I have learned to my cost, when these things have happened, that we simply cannot get those services back quickly. Teachers of the deaf and the visually impaired and blind do not hang on the back of cupboard doors; they take years to train, and it is hugely expensive. Building those services back up once they have gone, particularly if the local authority does not have the funding to do so, will be impossible and will severely disadvantage these groups of young children.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

Are there not examples of local authorities—one thinks of Suffolk—where the arrival of academies has not damaged SEN provision? So it does not need to be that way. Some academies have the ability to buy back services from the local authorities, but where that does not occur, does one not have to question the quality of the provision?

[Pat Glass]

There are two issues there. First, in the past it has depended on the number of academies. With all these arguments, there is a critical mass issue. If enough academies go and take their funding with them, it will no longer be possible for organisations, whether the local authority or some other body, to provide that service to the standard required. Have I answered the hon. Gentleman’s question?

[Mel Stride]

Yes, the hon. Lady answered the first part of my question. The second part was: is it not of concern to her that, when academies choose not to buy their services from local authorities, those services might not be of the requisite standard? That, in itself, is a concern.

[Pat Glass]

No doubt there are variations in the quality of service across the country. However, in my experience, the low incidence, high-need, high-cost services across the country are usually very good and valued by schools. The difficulty is that, at the moment, there is not a market place for it, so if we lose these services and a school finds that it needs them—for instance, if a blind child comes to the school—but has no idea about Brailling, specialist services, disability or any of these things, it will not be able to buy them from a market outside.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hancock]

I 100% agree. Sadly, I have seen that so many times—somebody who has devoted their whole life to their child, but to caring for them in their home environment so that they have never really tried to develop their true potential. Mencap’s slogan was about everyone having the opportunity to achieve their true potential, and all aspects of SEN education must always involve offering every child the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

I think there is a problem for existing schools that have a very good record of trying to facilitate proper care and to provide suitable and proper education for people with SEN. Some of them might find that because of the establishment of an academy or free school and the attractive way in which they are promoted as being something better, parents will take their children away from their old school and move them into the new academy or free school simply because they have been told that it is the thing to do and that that is the way the future will emerge. That will cause damage to the fabric and set-up of the existing school, and some of them will suffer greatly.

[Mel Stride]

Does not that argument suggest that parents cannot be trusted—that they do not have good judgment when it comes to looking after the future of their own children? Should we not put more trust than that in parents?

[Mr Hancock]

I am wholly in favour of trusting parents; it is the silver-tongued politicians I am worried about, who make the suggestions to people that this is like manna from heaven and that the whole world will be changed. Politicians have more than once talked with forked tongue and parents have been misled into believing that a certain direction was the way to go only to fall foul of a politician’s promise, which was usually made before or during, rather than after, an election campaign. Very seldom have such promises been made after an election campaign, and very seldom have they been fulfilled.