Deaf Children and Young People

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I support what the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) has said in this debate and, as a member of the all-party parliamentary group on deafness, I thank him for his dedicated work as its chair.

I am proud to have a deaf-aware nursery in my constituency, which is based at the New Life church in Congleton. It has been running for 25 years and caters for able children, as well as for children with needs, such as those with deafness or autism, and it will soon have a child with Down’s syndrome. For the past five years, it has been managed by Margaret Sanders, a special educational needs co-ordinator with a passion for inclusion who has worked hard to ensure that the nursery goes the extra mile to provide support for deaf children in an extra special way. However, such early-years provision should not only be available when one inspirational individual is backed by committed community support, such as that provided by New Life. The nursery also works closely with specialist organisations such as the teachers of the deaf.

Justine Heathcote, the mother of a profoundly deaf three-year-old girl who attends the nursery, has shared some of her experiences with me. Her daughter was diagnosed as deaf just after birth. It was a traumatic time for the family. Justine says generously that her family have received excellent support and care from the nursery and the local authority. Crucially, that included her daughter being given a teacher of the deaf immediately. I ask the Minister to do all that he can to ensure that that always happens. A family must be given the appropriate support straight away, either at birth or on diagnosis. I have heard that in some cases it takes 10 years from when hearing starts to deteriorate before a clear diagnosis is made.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend welcome the measures in the Children and Families Bill, as I do, to create care plans for people that go from nought to 24 years of age?

[Fiona Bruce]

I very much welcome that, because it is crucial that families can plan ahead from the earliest possible moment of childhood.

I was greatly encouraged to hear from Justine that her daughter got such excellent support, but I am aware that that is not universally available across the country. I ask the Minister to make an assessment of the varying standard of support across the country. One small example, which is important for Justine’s family, concerns her daughter’s hearing aids, which require four batteries a day. When they run out, Justine has a one-hour round trip to a hospital to collect them, yet in a neighbouring area, rechargeable batteries for hearing aids are available.

Another difficulty for some families concerns getting a statement of educational needs for their child. One highly experienced teacher of the deaf, Liz Gwynn, has spent many years liaising with local authorities. She told me—quite bluntly—that the reason for the delay or lack of statement is often that,

“local authorities don’t want to commit to the financial implications of a Statement.”

That cannot be right.

The one-to-one support provided by a teacher of the deaf in my council of Cheshire East is greatly appreciated, but it amounts to only one hour a week. Ideally, every deaf child and their family needs much more support and time. A teacher of the deaf plays a critical role in a child’s development because they advise on whether the child is accessing the curriculum properly and adequately, on that child’s language development and how they are hearing through hearing aids or cochlear implants, and on whether they need a radio aid to help them. Such teachers can act as an intermediary between the child or family and the school, in addition to helping set targets for development and providing strategies and ideas for accessing lessons. All hon. Members will agree that that cannot be done in one hour a week.

In Cheshire East there is a ratio of one teacher of the deaf to every 45 children—a phenomenal challenge for those teachers. I struggle to see how a teacher of the deaf can support that number of children and their families, let alone even more, yet I understand that in some parts of the country there is even less support for deaf children.

The availability of care for deaf children and young people should not be a postcode lottery. The National Deaf Children’s Society reports that some families with a deaf child are fighting that issue by moving to a different area, which is surely unacceptable. There are examples of good practice and expertise across the country, and better sharing of support across local authorities and support networks would be beneficial. I would be grateful if the Minister would tell the House whether there are any plans to share best practice across authorities and promote a more collaborative approach.

The exemplary nursery in my constituency, to which I referred, aims to maximise the individual potential of each child, but it is placed in a dilemma. When a child who has received that much-needed support—designed to raise their attainment levels in the early years to those of their non-deaf peers—moves to primary school, they are assessed. If they are assessed to be above a certain level, any one-to-one support that the child previously received, or which they may need in future, is withdrawn, and they begin primary school without it. What should the nursery do? Should it support the child to develop to the maximum level possible and risk that one-to-one support being withdrawn when they go to primary school? Withdrawal of such support would undoubtedly result in the child falling back and not continuing to flourish to the same degree that they need and for which the nursery has given them a head start. If we believe that every child should have the opportunity to develop to their fullest potential, surely that must be the case for the more vulnerable children in our society.

If a parent wants their child to go to a mainstream school in later years, it is crucial for support to be established at the start and to continue throughout the child’s early years. Liz Gwynn explains:

“In a big class with a ratio of 15 pupils to one staff member, or even thirty to one, it is very easy for a deaf child to be overlooked, especially if they aren’t a behavioural issue. They can appear to be understanding, but when questioned often haven’t a clue and get by by copying what others are doing.”

Such a situation can result in low self-esteem and lack of confidence. That is the “stolen future” that the National Deaf Children’s Society is raising awareness of, and I commend its work with local groups and parents around the country. I encourage the Minister to support those groups and ensure that all families have access to them. Will he review the assessment procedure for deaf children and young people, not just when they enter school, but when they move to another educational establishment for the first time, so as to determine appropriate individual provision for that child or young person? Sign language is critical, yet 81% of parents with deaf children never learn how to fully communicate with their child through that.

Justine, to whom I have referred, says she managed to get funding for level 1, but was unable to get funding for level 2, which she took at her own expense of £400. Level 3, at £1,000, is simply too expensive for the family. Will the Minister consider what duties can be placed on local authorities to provide sign language support for families?

As we have heard, deafness itself is not a learning disability, but we can do so much more to ensure that the attainment of deaf children and young people does not continue to fall worryingly behind that of their non-deaf peers.

School Governors and School Improvement

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship—not for the first time, Mrs Main. It has always proved a success, and I expect it will do so today. It is great to see that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools survived yesterday’s activities, as we would expect. I am wondering where the reshuffled Opposition education team are. They will now be led by an historian, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), which will certainly be interesting.

I want to talk about the importance of governors and governance, and to say that I enormously appreciate all that governors do. It is a tribute to our national life that 200,000 people are able and willing to serve as governors on our school and college governing bodies, and we should all thank them enormously. I have been a governor of several schools and colleges, so I know about the stresses and strains, the sometimes unsocial hours and the sense of accountability and responsibility that they normally feel: I have been there and done that.

I am pleased that there is an appetite for debate about school governors and governance. I was particularly glad that the Select Committee on Education, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), agreed to hold an inquiry on school governance. That inquiry exposed some interesting issues that I want to discuss, although I will not do so in a detailed or completely comprehensive way. The inquiry certainly raised a few interesting issues, and the Government have responded. They were sometimes in agreement with the Committee, and sometimes less so, but they always considered what we said, which is a tribute to the Select Committee process.

The context of this debate is straightforward, in that we are experiencing and will continue to experience a changing structure of education, because more and more academies are coming on stream and there is more competition. Of course, the arrival of free schools will be a key factor in accountability as regards the role of governors and school governance.

Another key issue that informs the debate is the need to focus on performance and outcomes. Never before has the education system been in a situation where performance and outcomes are so pivotal to the debate, which is quite right, because it is absolutely essential to give every child a proper chance and a fair opportunity to perform as best he or she can. Nothing less than that will do.

The changing role of local authorities is another factor, on which we will touch throughout this debate. That factor should be recognised, because schools often used to have the local authority to help them along or to deal with issues, but schools are now more autonomous, and with that autonomy comes more responsibility.

There are also challenges, including the issue of children who are not necessarily best dealt with or given the best chances in their schools. That was brought out extraordinarily well by the chief inspector of schools and colleges, Sir Michael Wilshaw, in his report, “Unseen children”. We cannot allow that to happen. As people interested in education, we must drive forward the highest standards across our whole country, not just where something happens to be relevant to an individual MP. We must ensure that delivery is good all over.

That point is reinforced by the chief inspector’s focus on leadership and management in schools. I will not talk about individual schools—that would be inappropriate—but I will say that where we have good leadership and management in schools, we have a good chance of having schools that are good and have high standards of teaching and learning. That is what we should talk about in the context of school governors and governance.

I pay tribute to my colleagues on the Education Committee, first for agreeing to do a report on school governance and secondly for contributing to that report, because we had some lively debates—quite rightly. The report was important as another way of keeping the question of school governance and governors on the agenda, which we must do. As I have said, the structure of education is evolving, and one question that we must tease out is how we deal with accountability, in which school governors of course have a role to play.

In the Select Committee, we discussed in detail some issues that are relevant to this debate—for example, the size of school governing bodies. It is generally accepted that smaller committees sometimes achieve more than larger ones, partly because they are more dynamic and tend to rely more on individuals with specific gifts. We should therefore try to streamline governing bodies into smaller ones, so that they can be more dynamic, flexible and innovative. The Government agree, but it is important to make it absolutely clear why smaller governing bodies will improve performance and, to underpin that, the Government must be strong in making sure that governing bodies get that message.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

My hon. Friend, like the Government, seems intrinsically to believe that smaller governing bodies are necessarily more effective. Will he share with the House the evidence to back that up?

[Neil Carmichael]

I can do so, because the Education Committee looked into that issue, and if people read the report, they will see that answers to many of the questions I asked yield such evidence. We need to look at that evidence when we consider questions like the one asked by my hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Committee. That dynamic can be seen at work not just in school governing bodies, but often on company boards and in other organisations. It works, and it should be considered.

The role of business is very important. That arises in relation to the question of why we do not have the best interface between business and education, which is a general problem. For example, it is certainly a worry that only 28% of A-levels are in STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths—when the business community is seeking a bigger pool of STEM-educated children and students.

Another issue is why more businessmen are not on school governing bodies, increasing that interface and bringing in leadership and management expertise. The Government have recognised that the Select Committee is right on that count, and we must ensure that we start to break down some of the barriers. The Government are right, and I hope that they will persist with the idea of creating a legal requirement to give people time off for service on a governing body.

I will finish by raising several points. The first is that we must strengthen the mechanism for imposing interim executive boards—IEBs—when schools are identified as failing. I believe that if an Ofsted inspection finds that a school is in serious trouble, there may well be a case for having an IEB, and the Select Committee suggested that Ofsted should be able to use its powers to impose one. The Government have said that there are other ways of solving the problems. If a school is in a federation or some other structure, they might get some assistance. None the less, we need to send a signal that setting up an IEB might just be the right option. It will not be right in every case or in every situation—for example, when a primary school is allied to another school—but it is certainly right for a secondary school that is failing in an obvious way.

There needs to be a pool of governors on those IEBs. Too many areas of the country do not have a sufficiently large pool of good people to be on IEBs. We need to redouble our efforts to find and properly train people. One structure that could solve that problem is the National College for Teaching and Leadership.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I support much of what he is saying, but I recommend that he looks at other models that promote collaboration between governing bodies. The experience from Darlington shows that a school can be turned around quickly by encouraging better collaboration, even when, as in Darlington, almost all the schools are academies.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Lady for her helpful intervention. That was one of my points. She is absolutely right, and I thank her for her support.

I want to touch on sub-regional structures, academy chains and other such structures that one might expect to find when schools collaborate. Collaboration certainly does make a difference. I suggest that some formal federal structure might be the answer in many situations. Mutual help, by which I mean learning best practice from others, getting support when there is a problem and being able to reach out for expert help, is really important. I accept the point that has just been made. I would even go further and say that the Government might want to consider making sub-regional structures more formal where that is appropriate. A horizontal or vertical structure, or a combination of both, is a good way of ensuring that the best leadership is available to schools. That applies to rural areas where there is a variety of smaller schools, or to a secondary school with a number of feeder schools.

Another point relates to the question of skills versus stakeholders. The Select Committee talked about that in some detail. It was right to do so, not least because I encouraged it to take on the issue. It has always concerned me that if schools are boxed in with certain stakeholders on their governing bodies, they might not be able to reach out for the appropriate skills. I have never been completely satisfied that all stakeholders are accountable to the body that appointed them or that they represent, so calling them stakeholders is, in some cases, an exaggeration. The Government need to focus on getting the right skills, and all barriers to that should be removed, which means that there should be considerably less focus on stakeholders and more focus on skills. I call on the Government to consider that point.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making some powerful points. I expected as much, given his strong personal experience of both a further education college and a secondary school in Stroud. On the point he was making, does he agree that governors in constituencies such as Stroud and Gloucester are by definition volunteers and community-minded, and that given the right experience, training and help they can play an invaluable role in the success of a school? What more does he think the Government can do to help on the training side?

[Neil Carmichael]

My hon. Friend, whose constituency neighbours mine, is absolutely right. Of course we need to encourage people to become governors. We do not want to frighten them off, and good training is critical. The Education Committee has made some powerful recommendations on training, which the Government have largely accepted. The National Governors Association has constantly talked about the importance of training. I want also to highlight the work of the all-party group on education governance and leadership, which has produced 20 questions that feature in a number of reports, including those of the Wellcome Trust and our Select Committee. Those 20 questions include a reminder that we should focus on the training of governors. We must ensure that those training packages are up to scratch and relevant to the challenges of governance now, and not to what we think it was. The Government are right to talk about setting up memorandums describing what academies turn into and how governors should respond.

[Jenny Chapman]

rose—

[Jenny Chapman]

I am grateful for your guidance, Mrs Main. I shall be brief. In my experience, local authorities have always put on a great deal of training, but it was not well attended and its quality was questionable. How can we ensure that the quality of training is improved now that schools are far more independent?

[Neil Carmichael]

I have already mentioned the National College of Leadership and Training, and that is one way forward, but there are other organisations that are independent of local authorities that should be doing the training.

Finally, we all rely on good school governors and on volunteers to be school governors. The question of payment has been discussed by the Education Committee. There is a possibility of paying chairs of governing bodies because of their exalted status and their great responsibilities. That should remain on the table to encourage a kind of progression of governorship—from governor to chair. That might be part of the answer to the question of federations, structures, academy chains and so on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is no, because the Government are taking significant action. I think he misunderstands; the OFT report shows the biggest set of problems in the industry. I know that much of the focus ends up on the APR headlines, but the surveys and the consumer organisations working with the issue day in, day out show the problems around issues such as affordability assessments, continuous payment authority abuse and abuse of the way in which roll-overs are used. The FCA has said specifically that it is looking to plug any gaps in regulation in all those areas when it takes on the role of regulator next April. We do not have to wait very long to see its draft rule book, which will be published this September.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

13. What recent assessment he has made of the value of supply chains to the UK economy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

In the UK and across the world, supply chains are diverse, complex and global. Their value is huge and their importance is vital. Support for supply chains is studded through our policy and underpinned by the industrial strategies.

[Neil Carmichael]

In contrast to the Labour Government, this Government are clearly doing something to build capacity in our supply chains. I welcome that and I see evidence of it in my constituency. May I stress the importance of making sure that supply chains are developed in our regions to ensure that we have a truly balanced economy, not just between manufacturing and services, but across our regions?

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work on promoting the importance of supply chains, not least because of the high proportion of manufacturing in his constituency. We will make sure that they stay at front and centre of what we do in the Department.

Pupil Premium

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I am afraid that the mood of consensus has come to an end. The hon. Lady is completely wrong. These assessments are already being completed in schools up and down the land, and most pupils do not even know that they are going through some great baseline assessment process. They just think that they are doing the sort of things that children do in schools. What is the logic of measuring progress, giving it huge status and talking about its importance, which we all do, if we then say that we will measure progress only from halfway through primary education? That does not make sense.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I greatly welcome the statement, not least because of the powerful point that Sir Michael Wilshaw made in his “Unseen Children” report recently. That report provides full justification for the measures that my right hon. Friend has announced. Will he reassure the House that the thrust of the measures will also tackle schools in rural and coastal areas, given the clear underachievement that has been identified in them?

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The reports by Ofsted and others highlight the real risk of focusing only on schools with large numbers of disadvantaged youngsters. Of course those schools are important, and they will get the largest amount out of the pupil premium, but the schools with only a modest number of such youngsters will no longer be able to hide behind high overall attainment figures. Our focus on progress will ensure that the schools that are getting high levels of attainment but not delivering enough for all their pupils will be obliged to do so. The accountability measures will also ensure that we pick up any large gaps in performance between disadvantaged pupils and the rest, whether they are in our inner cities, the leafiest parts of the country or our coastal communities.

National Curriculum

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

One of the best schools I have ever visited is in my hon. Friend’s constituency—Nunthorpe academy, which is run by Debbie Clinton, a school that has gone from special measures to outstanding in the last couple of years. However, he is right that one or two academy chains have not done everything they promised. In the case of the organisation he mentioned, we have taken steps to deal with that.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will know that the Royal Academy of Engineering has stated that we will need at least 100,000 graduates in maths and engineering to compete with the rest of the world. This is something that informed my decision to hold a festival of engineering and manufacturing in my constituency. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Thank you very much. Does he agree that firm leadership will be required from schools to ensure that we get the best teachers in the right place to deliver on the need that the Royal Academy of Engineering has outlined?

[Michael Gove]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. It is a pity that, in one of our best universities for engineering—University college London—fewer than half the undergraduates enlisting in that course are from the United Kingdom. We need to do more, and my hon. Friend is leading the way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, both for his continued and passionate support for children in care and care leavers, and for his instrumental work in securing the junior ISAs—individual savings accounts—which have proved to be a great success, with over 30,000 in operation. We want to enable care leavers to continue to live with former foster carers where it is right for them to do so. I know from my own family experience that it can be a hugely beneficial part of their transition to adult life.

Although staying put policies have been clearly set out—and I wrote to all the directors of children’s services in October to lay out the terrain so that they can do more to support foster children in that situation—we want to see further improvements. More figures will be published later this year on the staying put pilots and how they are beginning to spread more widely. We will look at those keenly, as we want more progress more quickly.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

School governance is an increasingly topical issue. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is important to ensure that our school governing bodies are strong, courageous and capable of making sure that all schools provide decent education for all their pupils?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is right. That is why I am so pleased that Lord Nash and Sir Michael Wilshaw are working together to raise the quality of school governance.

GCSEs

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely—this qualification should be available to all state schools that have high aspirations for their students. Next Monday, I look forward to meeting Andrew R.T. Davies, the gifted gentleman who leads for the Conservatives in the Welsh Assembly. I will also talk to Welsh Conservative MPs, of whom there are a growing number, to see how we can take this forward effectively.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

As a member of the Education Committee, I welcome the Secretary of State’s positive use of our report in today’s statement, because it was a well-researched, considered report. I also welcome his appreciation of the role of Ofqual, but does it include making sure that teachers are not teaching to the exam rather than to the subject as a whole?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. One of the problems with the way that modularisation occurred was that it led to too much teaching to the test, and insufficient deep understanding. I hope that our reforms will address that.

Children and Families Bill

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

As ever, I am grateful to the Chair of the Education Committee for raising a crucial element for many young people with a disability, and that is access to other activities outside those of the classroom. I am mindful of that and as I told the Committee this morning have seen for myself, at a special school in Chislehurst only last week, how the integration of sport in schools, where children with both physical and other disabilities are able to participate, can have a huge knock-on effect in other areas of their life. It would not always be appropriate through the identification of the needs and therefore the support for each child in relation to their plan to have a built-in element that incorporates and encompasses physical activity, but clearly we want to provide as much opportunity for them as for any other child. The schools should be doing it anyway under the Equality Act 2010 and the reasonable adjustments for which they are responsible, but it also makes good sense, as we know. I am happy—I made this commitment to the Committee—to look at that in the context of the code of practice, but also to work with many of the organisations and charities who are already out there, through the project ability scheme and others, to see what more they can do to spread good practice in this area. I am happy to keep my hon. Friend informed of that process.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

As has been mentioned, the Select Committee held a series of pre-legislative scrutiny meetings. Is the Minister satisfied that there are sufficient accountability mechanisms for agency co-operation, and that the appropriate agency will automatically take the lead? How will that work out in different cases?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Timpson]

I have a strong memory of spending a late night in the House a few years ago when my hon. Friend managed to get more than 100 of us to present petitions on behalf of many of those parents who decided to home educate their children. I know that he, as chair of the all-party group on home education, has been a great advocate on their behalf. Clearly we want to ensure that every child with SEN, however they are educated, during the period of compulsory age and beyond, from nought to 25, gets the support they require to meet their full potential. That should be no different in the circumstances he describes. I will be able to respond in more detail when we debate his amendments, and I am happy to continue that conversation with him outside the Chamber.

[Neil Carmichael]

On home education and the obvious issues relating to special educational needs, what consideration has the Minister given to registration of those children who are home educated?

[Mr Timpson]

I am straying slightly outside my portfolio, but where it impinges on special educational needs clearly we want to ensure that those children receive the support they require. There were attempts in the last Parliament to bring about some form of registration, which was eventually put out to grass. I think we have the balance right at this stage, but of course it is something that my ministerial colleagues who are responsible for these matters will no doubt keep under review.

The new duty in the Bill relating to health commissioning also brings in joint commissioning arrangements, which must include those for securing education, health and care needs assessments and the education, health and care provision specified in the education, health and care plans. The new health duty requires health commissioners to ensure that the health elements of those plans are provided for each individual, thus providing direct clarity for parents that the support their child needs will be provided

We have taken an open approach to the Bill, listened carefully to the views of a wide range of people and made changes to improve it. I know that is the approach that my ministerial colleagues in the other place, including Lord Nash, intend to continue when the Bill makes its way to them. However, before it does we have some important business to conclude in this House today.

I will begin our consideration of the Bill’s SEN provisions by speaking to new clause 9 in a little more detail and to Government amendments 17 to 25. These amendments clarify responsibilities and make consequential amendments to legislation as a result of provisions in the Bill. With regard to new clause 9, it is important that the responsibilities of local authorities are clear when a child or young person with an education, health and care plan moves from one area to another. The new clause provides for regulations to specify those responsibilities. Regulations will make it clear that the new local authority is treated as though it had made the plan. This ensures that plans do not lapse when children and young people move from one area to another and that support for their special educational needs is maintained. I therefore urge the House to support new clause 9.

Amendment 17 to clause 41 has been tabled at the request of the Welsh Government. It would enable independent schools that are specially organised for making provision for children and young people with special educational needs, and specialist post-16 institutions in Wales, to apply to the Secretary of State for Education to be on a list of independent institutions that those with education, health and care plans can ask to be named on their plan. If independent schools in Wales wish to put themselves forward for approval, the amendment will be of benefit to children and young people who live close to the Welsh border whose needs would be best met in a Welsh independent school or those who would be appropriately placed in independent boarding provision in Wales. I urge the House to support the amendment.

On amendments 18 to 20 on personal budgets, I signalled our intention to table these consequential amendments when we debated clause 48 on personal budgets in Committee. The changes they make are necessary because of the changes we made to clause 42 in Committee by placing the duty in clause 42(3) on health commissioners to secure the health provision identified in an education, health and care plan. The amendments allow health commissioners to discharge their duty to make health care provision specified in EHC plans when this provision is secured using a direct payment. This replicates the equivalent provision on local authorities set out in clause 48(5). The amendments clarify that when parents or young people exercise their direct payment, this allows the commissioning body to discharge its statutory duty. The proposed use of the words “having been” in clauses 48(5) and 48(7) makes it clear that the duties on commissioning bodies and local authorities to secure provision are discharged only through the use of a direct payment when the child or young person has actually received the provision, in a manner in keeping with the regulations. I urge the House to support these amendments.

Government amendment 21 relates to clause 49, which inserts new section 17ZA into the Children Act 1989, giving local authorities a power to continue to provide services they have been providing under section 17 to a young person before their 18th birthday to that young person when they are 18 and over. This is a technical amendment that makes it clear that the power in section 17ZA applies only to local authorities in England.

Government amendments 22 to 25 relate to schedule 3 and make further amendments to existing legislation as a consequence of the Bill’s provisions—for example, replacing references to statements and learning difficulty assessments throughout. These are necessary changes to ensure the proper implementation of the reforms in part 3, and I therefore urge hon. Members to approve them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who rightly said that the Public Bill Committee not only saw a cross-party coming together of minds, but delivered meaningful scrutiny of probably the most important Bill relating to special educational needs that we will see in a generation. It is 30 years since the Education Act 1981 broke the ground after the noble Baroness Warnock made her recommendations. We are in the unique position as legislators of being able to make a step change for the generations to come. That is why it is incumbent on us all to get the detail right.

I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his constructive engagement with the debate, and not only in the Public Bill Committee. He has engaged not only with Members of this House, but with the disability sector. He has brought understanding and experience to the deliberations of the Bill, which we have enjoyed. I note with enthusiasm his willingness to improve the Bill. As has rightly been said, the Government have introduced important legal duties on clinical commissioning groups to bolt down the health elements of education, health and care plans. That good work goes on today in the form of further amendments.

To get to the meat of the matter, I will deal in turn with each of the amendments that I have tabled; my comments have been foreshadowed by those of the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West. I am grateful to her for outlining what I want to say and make no criticism of that at all. Amendment 37, which appears in my name and hers, relates to the social care element of education, health and care plans. It is, as she described it, the last piece in the jigsaw.

I enjoyed the exchange that I had with the Minister about this matter in Committee. It is correct that the groundbreaking Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 contains an important duty that can be applied to social care services for disabled children. However, there is a danger that in failing to link that existing duty with the duties that we are creating, we will not escape the silo effect of assessments. What do I mean by that? There is a danger that a wholly separate social care assessment will continue to be made, without the global approach that I and the Minister believe is the ethos behind the Bill. It would therefore be a missed opportunity if, for want of a few short amendments, we missed this trick.

We should look at this matter from the point of view of the parent of a child who comes fresh to a system of which they have no experience. Surely the thrust of our approach must be oriented around not just the child, but their family. We have heard many stories—I speak from experience—of parents having to reinvent the wheel every time they engage with a separate part of local provision. We must all seek to avoid that. That is why I commend the wording of amendment 37, which would do much to tie together the assessment process in the way that I have described.

On a related theme, and with regard to the point of view of parents and families, amendment 38 deals with the right of appeal against decisions that are made about the creation and ambit of education, health and care plans. The Bill allows the first-tier special educational needs and disability tribunal to hear appeals only about the education aspects of the plan. That means that it covers only part of the plan. I worry that we could end up with a complex and bureaucratic system in which challenges to the health and social care aspects of provision have to be conducted simultaneously through different tribunals, procedures and processes.

I noted with encouragement the Minister’s comments in Committee. I know that the draft code of practice, which is helpfully published alongside the Bill and will be consulted on later this year, states that having a single point of redress for all the provisions in an education, health and care plan would be helpful. He said in Committee that the existing complaints procedures in health and social care meant that it would be unnecessary to extend the powers of the tribunal. However, he made the important concession that a single point of reference would be desirable. That is helpful.

[Neil Carmichael]

When the Education Committee considered that aspect of the measures during pre-legislative scrutiny, two issues arose. The first was the difference in culture between education and health. I wonder whether my hon. Friend wants to comment on that, given that we expect education and health bodies to work together and that any accountability process could be complicated. The second issue was that health would have to take the lead in some cases because it would have the overwhelming portion of the responsibility, but the Bill focuses on education.

[Mr Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because he makes an important umbrella point about the difficulties that could be encountered and that—dare I say it—could be exploited by clever lawyers. I often say that and I have to remind the House that, although I am not sure that I am clever, I must admit that I am of the legal profession. It is proper to concede that point against my profession, because lawyers will be instructed by local authorities that need to conserve their resources and will increasingly look to discharge their statutory duties, but to go no further. We have to avoid the scenario of families having to wait for provision while lawyers dance on the head of a pin over costly and unnecessary arguments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Buckland]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend, who, in effect, gives us a case study. He reminds me that I want to draw back to what we were discussing. I have a hypothetical case study before me. A young 15-year-old with Asperger’s and co-occurring mental health difficulties receives cognitive behavioural therapy. Before starting that therapy, his attendance at school was low, attending as few as two days a week, but with the help of the therapy he attends more like four days a week. His conditions have a huge effect on his home life and the quality of relations with his parents and wider family.

Under the new system, it is not clear whether that young man’s cognitive behavioural therapy would be deemed

“wholly or mainly for the purposes of…education”.

Without it, he could not access education, because he would not attend regularly. We need to answer that question. We do not want to put such people in that position, or to have artificial debates on what the law means.

[Neil Carmichael]

My hon. Friend is making an outstanding speech on a critical issue. I want to reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) on the importance of access to national facilities, because we must not localise provision at the expense of national organisations. Ruskin Mill in my constituency, and the National Star College in my county, provide expertise that we do not necessarily find elsewhere that is critical to young people’s futures. I want to put down a strong marker that we should ensure that national facilities are not put at risk through the funding—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. We are drifting now. Interventions are supposed to be short points that are relevant to the speech at the time they are made. If Members want to contribute, they can. The hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) has had the floor for some time, and other hon. Members wish to speak in this important debate. Despite his generosity in giving way, I am sure he is probably coming towards the end of what he wishes to say in this part of the debate.

Careers Guidance

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to participate in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. As all the previous speakers have said, it is a very important debate.

It is also great to see our leader, the Chairman of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), back again. Obviously, all of us wish him all the best for a swift recovery.

It is good to see the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) gracing the education world once more. We remain a happy if not always entirely united Committee, which is good for democracy. This morning, I was busy telling a conference just what the role of a Select Committee is. There seemed to be some confusion, with people thinking that we are just another adjunct of the Government, but if they came along here they would notice that members of Select Committees do not just simply salute the Government, which is another good aspect of Parliament that we should reflect on and be pleased about.

As the Chairman of the Committee mentioned, at our last meeting we talked about destinations, and the Secretary of State mentioned that he was sorry that he had not covered that issue properly in the accountability world. It is a critical issue and I want to say why it is so important that we know about destinations, and why that has an impact on schools in terms of careers. Obviously, if a school is to be measured by the destinations of its pupils in the future, it will show a great interest in finding the best destinations for its pupils and encouraging them towards those destinations. We need to bear that in mind as a stimulus for schools, particularly secondary schools. In other words, if a school is identified as good because of its record in getting pupils into good jobs or good pathways to further their careers and so on, it will establish the mechanisms that will help it to do that. We should work really hard to ensure that we have a destination measurement system in place.

I say that because whenever I ask companies in my constituency what we can do to help, there are usually three things. First, there are regulations; they are talked about by people in just about every organisation. Then, of course, there is criticism of high street banks, because they do not lend. But the commonest question is, “Where do we recruit from? Where are the skills?” We must start working out how we match the demand for skills with the output of our education system. Doing that is critical, especially when we are attempting to rebalance the economy, because while we are doing it we are effectively recalibrating the kind of skills we need. Therefore, we must ensure that people understand where the best opportunities are, both for themselves and for our economy. Business and education need to engage properly.

I have been having conversations with people from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, for example, and they make that point forcefully, because they are aware that there is a bit of a void between many schools and businesses. What do we have to do to improve the situation? First, we must send a signal that now that schools have the responsibility for careers guidance, which they will have for some time notwithstanding the discussion that we have already had today about resources, we must make sure that schools are actually going out to engage with businesses. Governing bodies will have a role, and head teachers have to accept that it is part of their responsibility. It is absolutely right that Ofsted should consider how schools deal with those challenges, and measure the performance of schools and comment on it as part of the inspection package.

Of course, business has to engage with schools as well; there must be two-way traffic. Businesses must communicate with schools, because it is no use their sitting on the sidelines and saying they wish that this or that would happen; they must ensure that they influence the schools. Academies, of course, are more autonomous, so they should be more responsive and more open to contributions from the business world, and certainly from local businesses.

That is an issue we must focus on and the hon. Member for Scunthorpe—

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I was enjoying what the hon. Gentleman said, up to that point, but will he talk about resource? I still visit many schools and they would love to do the things that he has just been articulating, but schools are busy and strapped for cash and resources. When I chaired the Education Committee, the two things that we said a school needed were a person trained to be a careers adviser—it does not come from Buggins—and the resource to get out of the classroom to meet businesses. Does he not agree that resources are crucial?

[Neil Carmichael]

I will just finish my response to the point that the hon. Member for Scunthorpe made. He quite rightly said that local enterprise partnerships should play a role. They should, and we need to see an enhanced role for them. That would be a useful tool to encourage dialogue.

As for resources, of course everybody accepts that we do not have a bottomless pit. Having more resources would be better, but we must work within the framework we have. Businesses should engage with schools from self-interest, and we need to make that point more. I tried to provide some context by pointing out that, in some cases, businesses are concerned about where they are going to recruit.

In my constituency, I have a festival of engineering and manufacturing. I do so for two reasons. First, one in every five jobs in my constituency is connected with engineering and manufacturing; it is a big proportion, which shows we have critical mass. Secondly, I am aware that there ought to be more dialogue between medium-sized firms and schools, so I provide a platform for that dialogue to happen. We organise events, for example constructing electric cars, and various projects involving batteries, computers and so forth. Children come into businesses and find out what it is like to see a business, and business people go into schools and see what the situation is there. We had the festival last year; it was incredibly successful and that is why we are doing it again this year.

We want to see more such initiatives; it is all very well sitting around and saying, “This is what we need to do”, but we have to get on and do it. My festival is a good example. It is not something that everyone would necessarily want to copy, but people may want to consider the messages that it sends out and the mechanisms that it uses.

It is absolutely right that we get businesses into schools. The motivator could well be the destination measurements, and it is really important that teachers learn more about the place of work. That is something else that the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development talked to me about, and I intend to expand that dialogue to see exactly what else we can learn about the way forward.

I finish by discussing economic competitiveness, because as a country we have to be more competitive and make more use of the European Union. I do not want to go through the arguments that we had in the House yesterday, but in my contribution to the economic growth debate, I made a point about the role of the Mittelstand type of companies in Germany. They have linkages with their local community, knowledge of and involvement in local schools, capacity to plan ahead and an interest in ensuring that they get the right supply of skills into their firms, as needed, largely on the basis of knowing what their requirements are and having the contacts to ensure that they can be fulfilled. We need to arrive at such a situation. It requires not resources and bureaucracy but a change of culture, in which schools and businesses start working together to ensure that we have the right skill sets and the right environment for pupils and students to choose careers that suit them and contribute to the rebalancing of our economy and produce more economic growth.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

Yes, Luton is a priority area. Some of the first batches of the privately financed priority schools will be in the hon. Gentleman’s area and we expect those, after proper approval, to be released this spring. We are currently carrying out a survey of the entire school estate and later this year, when we have that evidence, we will be able to prioritise in a sensible way future allocations of capital.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I thank the Minister and the Department for enabling a much-needed and long awaited investment in one of my schools, Marling school in my constituency. Does he agree that this is an example of a paced and sensible capital investment programme?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Compared with the Building Schools for the Future programme, this is a programme that is on time and on budget and is delivering extra investment in the schools in the country that need it most.