Deaf Children and Young People

Michael McCann Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

That is right. I have been shown local authority adverts for teachers of deaf children that did not require full capacity in sign language. In some circumstances, the sign language of the children is better than that of the teacher, and that cannot be satisfactory.

Things are getting worse in many areas. The NDCS has carried out a survey that shows that 29% of local authorities are cutting services for deaf children and a further 25% have identified that there is a risk of cuts. Of course we are living in a time of spending restraint, but that should not impact on people who have such real need and are so vulnerable. The Government have made it clear that they want to maintain support for vulnerable learners, but if it is not happening we have to ask the Government what more they can do to ensure that cuts do not happen and that standards are maintained. We have to work out what can be done to maintain support for deaf children, and we should have aspirations to do a lot better.

One suggestion is that Ofsted should be required to inspect services for deaf children. When we consider how much scrutiny mainstream teachers in schools are subject to by Ofsted, many people tell me that they are surprised that teachers of the deaf and specialist support services are subject to virtually no such oversight. That sends a signal that deaf education is less important than mainstream.

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the reason the Government do not want to examine these issues is that the poor standard of teachers for the deaf would be exposed and there would rightly be a public scandal?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

That is a problem of government, I suppose. I would like to believe that Governments in the end will say, “We need data and if the data show that we are not up to the mark, even if we cannot solve the problem overnight, we will at least embark on a strategy to do something about it.” So it is not a good excuse not to inspect services. I should be interested to hear from the Minister whether the Government would consider giving Ofsted a specific responsibility.

Ofsted did a report on communication last year, looking at three local authorities that had established best practice. That was interesting, but it did not tell us much about the other 149 authorities that it had not studied. So we do not know and we need to know. If there is a recognition that people are going to be scrutinised, that gets the Government off the hook to some extent because it means that the authorities must respond to that scrutiny. Every tier of government that has a responsibility must accept its share of responsibility. I hope the Government will consider that as a practical suggestion.

Communication support is at the heart of what deaf children and their families need. I know that from personal experience. I have very poor sign language. I did go on a course but I found it very difficult. It is a language and I had difficulty keeping up with it. I try where I can. I notice that every time I am in the company of deaf people—which, because of my interest, I very often am—the transformation of that relationship by the sheer appearance of an interpreter is phenomenal. Therefore I understand absolutely why communication support is so valuable. As one blind person said to me, “I would prefer to be blind than deaf because being blind cuts me off from things, but being deaf would cut me off from people and I would find that far worse.” That is what people need to understand—the social isolation resulting from the lack of communication support.

I tabled a private Member’s Bill which notionally has its Second Reading next Friday. It identifies the areas of communication support that the deaf community is looking for, and it identifies the need to ensure that we can develop sign language support for them. The point has been made that many families are paying thousands of pounds of their own money for sign language education—if they can find the teachers—so that they can communicate with their children. I do not believe that that is acceptable.

When I undertook a report for the Council of Europe, I discovered that the policies in Scandinavia meant that interpreters were readily available and that in most Scandinavian countries as soon as a child was diagnosed as deaf, free tuition in sign language was offered to the child and their family. I commend that as a practice that should be available to people in this country.

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[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

I have quite a lot to say, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will try to bear in mind the time constraints.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) on bringing this debate to the Chamber. I declare a personal interest, because my three siblings—my younger brother, Brian, and my two younger sisters, Clare and Delia—are profoundly deaf. Equality is a word that we often bandy about in this House, but deaf people in the United Kingdom have never had equality in education. Progress has been made thanks to deafness campaigners such as my parents, Bridget and Charles McCann—the self-same parents the right hon. Gentleman mentioned who suddenly had a deaf child and did not get any access to services to support them. However, the fight goes on. The motion highlights the fact that we still have much work to do, with the fear and danger that local authorities might cut back on services for deaf children and young people. The National Deaf Children’s Society has evidence to suggest that education services for deaf people might be cut. We should not be talking about cuts; if we genuinely seek to bring about equality for deaf people, services must be increased.

Colleagues will have noticed my Scottish accent and the fact that I represent a seat in Scotland that some people have difficulty in pronouncing, particularly the last part. I entered this debate also to flag up the fact that Scotland is a year behind the cuts and austerity measures that have been brought in for local government, although I do not mention that in a party political sense. The Prime Minister agreed with the First Minister, Alex Salmond, that Scotland would retain its budget in 2010, so we are a year behind the curve. There is already speculation in Scotland about local government services being cut, and I suspect that services to deaf children and young people are in danger. That is the relevance of my participation in this debate.

I will not be ungenerous in suggesting that we have not made some progress in the past 40 years. Let me tell the House about my experience with my brothers and sisters. I remember the grey bus arriving in front of our house in East Kilbride. On the bus were children with every disability one could think of—physical disabilities, physical and mental disabilities, or deaf-blindness. The amalgamation of challenges presented by those children with disabilities led to two things. First, it dumbed down education. At the school my brother and sisters went to, the education was carried out at the lowest common denominator instead of challenging the kids to do the best they could.

Secondly, there was the stigma. As you can imagine, children can be cruel. As the elder brother, I ended up with a few second prizes in the pugilism stakes. If your brother’s and sisters’ honour is criticised in some way, or they are taunted by other children, then you step in and defend them. Yes, children can be cruel, but we should remember that adults—the educationists of the time—created the system that enabled them to be so.

The inequality of 40 years ago was palpable. Profoundly deaf children were not allowed to sign. The right hon. Member for Gordon talked about British sign language. We made up our own sign language in the house, because there was no formal language to communicate in. Believe it or not, my brother was forced to sit with his hands behind his back in the classroom, unable to communicate, despite the fact that he was profoundly deaf. Forty years ago, deaf children had no access to the curriculum that I had as a hearing child. That meant that their ability to learn was stifled. Bright young deaf children were consigned to the dustbin on the day and hour they first entered their primary school.

I am glad that my brother and sisters have done very well in their adult lives, mainly because of my parents’ refusal to take no for an answer. They refused to take on board what the educationists of the time said was good for such children. The perceived wisdom of the day was that people listened to the educationists. Hearing parents who did not know about deafness would take the word of the people who were professional and allegedly knew more than they did. The less vigorous parents, who were not prepared to campaign like my parents, took the educationalists’ word and ultimately their children suffered and did not get anywhere near the aspirations achieved by my brother and sisters. However, they have fallen foul of many of the problems mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, including mental health issues and the inability to get employment. I often wonder what my brother and sisters could have achieved—even though they have achieved a lot—had they had access to the same education opportunities as me.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Thomasson Memorial school, an excellent primary school for deaf children and children with hearing difficulties, is located in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that parents and children should be able to choose whether to attend a specialist school for children with disabilities or a mainstream school? The needs of the child should be paramount in any educationalist’s decision about the best education for them.

[Mr McCann]

I agree. Choice is important and I will discuss it later. If parents want their child to attend a hearing school, they must be supported in that choice. Moreover, if parents want their child to attend a specialist school, they should not just be lumped in a classroom with a bunch of other children, because that will drag them down.

Time is of the essence. I will cut a couple of pages of what I was going to say; the right hon. Member for Gordon has already mentioned the statistics on deaf people, so I need not rehearse them again. We should recognise that there are many shades between hearing and deafness: some have lost a little hearing while others lose it a little later in life, and on the other side of the spectrum are those who are profoundly death. With the greatest respect to the tribute paid to Jack Ashley earlier, we should remember that he became deaf and was not born deaf, and that there is a world of difference for people who have never heard the spoken word.

The key issue is British sign language, the officially recognised language for the deaf. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, it is diverse and colourful and as finessed as any other language in the world. In fact, Members may be interested to know that every person’s sign name is unique. I could not possibly show the House some of the signs that have been made for my relatives over the years, because they cannot be recorded in Hansard, but they would make Members chuckle.

In the world of education, the gatekeepers—the educationalists—know better, or so they think. Members may be surprised or even shocked to learn that teachers of the deaf are expected to have only BSL level 3 as a qualification. However, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, the fact that there is such a dearth of talent in this field means that some get jobs as teachers of the deaf and are labelled as such even though they have skills only at BSL level 2. It should be an aspiration, and I hope the Minister will address that issue in his response. We should raise the standards for teachers of the deaf and ensure that the right quality of individual is teaching our deaf children. I have thought about the best way to describe the situation. It is like asking someone who has just failed their driving test to become a driving instructor: they know a little, but they are not competent and should not be allowed to drive on their own.

That is a practical example by way of analogy, but I have another one. My brother Brian has five deaf children who all go to school. His eldest daughter, Monika, is 12 years old and has more advanced communication skills than her teachers. They have BSL level 2 and she is way above that at level 7 or 8, perhaps even higher. As she progresses through high school she will meet challenges and become a frustrated child unable to fulfil her potential, because her teachers are not able to communicate with her properly.

In primary education and at high school, the quality of the teacher must rise with the child. The teacher must always be ahead of the child and have far advanced communication skills so that the child does not feel frustrated. When they sign something to the teacher in British sign language, the teacher must understand what the problem is and how to communicate with them. Sadly, the children in my family have become frustrated on many occasions because they are bright, sparky kids who have not always had the opportunity to be educated properly.

The NDCS has uncovered some circumstantial evidence, but local authorities are reluctant to disclose information about deaf education. A hypothesis for that might be that they do not want the figures to be revealed. Outrageously, Ofsted does not inspect services for the deaf routinely, as the right hon. Member for Gordon said. Local authorities are damaging the life chances of young deaf people across the United Kingdom. This debate has provided the opportunity to expose that argument to a wider audience, not only in this House, but across the country.

If there are to be further cuts to local government services, there is a danger that deafness will once again take a back seat and that those who are already vulnerable will be affected. My father once described deafness as a Cinderella disability because nobody can see it. When a child is physically disabled, we do not shirk the responsibility of meeting the costs of the support that they need to participate in the education system. Why is there such a dearth of ambition and support for deaf children? Local government cannot be allowed to attack this Cinderella disability because it thinks that it can get away with it. We must stop paying lip service to equality of opportunity for every child and start providing it.

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[Mr McCann]

The concept of BSL as a second language is indeed a noble idea, but does the hon. Gentleman concede that we might as well ask for cars to run on water, given that deaf children—and profoundly deaf children in particular—are not being given the proper education in the classroom that is available to their hearing counterparts?

[Mr Buckland]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but I am trying to make the point that there are good local examples of integration which enables children and young people with hearing loss to gain access to the mainstream rather than being isolated. I think that the widespread use of BSL is a very good way of ensuring that they are valued, that their confidence increases, and that they become very much part of the mainstream. However, it does not stop there.

We have heard a little about radio and video-aided systems. The borough of Swindon is providing £20,000 for an extra 20 such systems, which will improve curriculum access from pre-school to key stage 4. I am particularly impressed by the work of a local partnership, the children and young people’s hearing services group. It contains not only professionals from education, health and social services but members of the voluntary sector, and it is led by parents. When organisations are led by parents and service users, services, rather than being developed in a way that is remote from users, are much more focused on the needs of users and their families. Moreover, keeping provision local is good for local authorities, for which out-of-borough provision can be significantly more costly. That is a good local example of money being spent wisely, in a way that helps to integrate services and maximises the advantages for young people with hearing loss.

There is much that I could say about the progress of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Minister and I continue to engage in a dialogue about the need to ensure that, when necessary, parents and families of young people with hearing loss and other special needs have a clear point of redress rather than ending up in a convoluted, labyrinthine system of appeal. I know that he is listening very carefully to those observations, and I hope that when the Bill comes back to this place both the Bill and the code of practice, which has already been improved from its original draft, will be truly a fresh start and a new dawn for children with hearing loss.