Pat Glass
Main Page: Pat Glass (Labour - North West Durham)Department Debates - View all Pat Glass's debates with the Department for Education
(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Vernon Coaker
Thank you, Ms Primarolo. [Laughter.]
The Government are seeking to save money by cutting the Building Schools for the Future programme, but they say that this expenditure is nothing to do with those cuts. They say that they are economising on low-priority IT projects. That will provide £50 million, and they have already received 38 expressions of interest.
I do not think any of us believe that that really adds up. The £50 million is only until March 2011, and because of the comprehensive spending review, no one has any idea what will happen after that. On 20 April 2010—apparently everything has changed since then, but I think it useful to draw attention to this—The Independent quoted the Secretary of State as saying:
“The capital cost”—
of new free schools, that is—
“will come from reducing spending on the government’s extremely wasteful Building Schools for the Future programme by 15 per cent.”
I know that when a party gets into power things change a little, but the Secretary of State cannot really have believed that there was not a budget for him to use if he wanted to fund his free school experiment. He did not say that last year; he said it on 20 April 2010.
Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
Is not one of the saddest aspects of the debate on Building Schools for the Future the fact that it is being portrayed as simply a capital programme? It was never intended to be that. It was intended to bring about a transformation of secondary education. It was intended to improve the curriculum, improve inclusion and raise standards. Nothing that I have seen suggests to me that that will happen as a result of the free school programme. The Bill is being pushed through the House at great speed, and we are being given no evidence or details.
Vernon Coaker
My hon. Friend made a number of valuable contributions yesterday, and she is absolutely right to remind us of those facts. As I pointed out at the beginning of my speech, Building Schools for the Future was not just about school buildings; it was about transforming opportunities for young people.
Pat Glass
I am sure that I am not the only person in the House who worked in education during the time of the previous Tory Government. I remember what it was like in those school buildings, where I was putting out buckets in the hall when it rained and excluding children from the hall because it was dangerous. I said that BSF is not about a capital building programme—it is a transformation programme. Our school buildings say what we think about our young people. To have children in office blocks, disused buildings and old schools—
The Temporary Chairman (Martin Caton)
Order. I have been indulgent, but interventions should be a lot shorter than that.
Pat Glass
The amendment is on a really important matter, and the fact that so many Members are present after 4 o’clock on Thursday shows how important.
Given my background in this area, I wish to start by saying that a lot of it is about definitions. I welcome what the Minister has said, but as someone who is steeped in the issue and has worked in special educational needs for many years, I have to say that I am sorry, but it just is not enough. SEN is a notional term—it is almost in the eye of the beholder. It is not defined in law. There is a huge code of practice intended to give the term feel and shape, but that code of practice is nothing more than guidance. It mentions the responsibilities of local authorities, but not necessarily those of schools or academies. If we are to rely on the code of practice, it will need to be rewritten with those things specifically stated.
SEN is also a disputed term. The very fact that we have an SEN tribunal, with which local authorities struggle all the time, and which is large, growing and very costly, and that SEN cases are in the courts all the time, suggests that the term is not defined now and will become less defined in future.
I have gone into many schools, some of which achieve incredibly highly, and found that 50% of their children are on their SEN register. That is clearly nonsense, and there are all kinds of reasons for it. It is the teacher in the classroom, or the head teacher, who defines whether a child has SEN and places them at school action or school action plus. In many cases, they do not even advise the parent. That is illegal, but it happens. Head teachers do that for myriad reasons, including that they feel it will improve the school’s contextual value added and its standing with Ofsted.
Some local authorities still delegate funding on the basis of school action and school action plus, however stupid that may seem, as I tell them. The number of children who are at school action or school action plus or defined as having SEN depends on so many different contextual issues in different places.
That brings us to the comments about who gets a statement and who does not. In defence of my former colleagues, I have never dealt with services that do not want to do a good job or want to prevent children from getting the support that they need. However, they are rationed services and they have to prioritise. No matter how much money the previous Government and the Government before them put into the more severe and complex end of SEN, which is growing, it inevitably drifted off to the less severe end. That is why there is a problem of children with statements who should not have them, and others who need them but do not get them. I hope that the Government can resolve it, but previous Governments have not been able to do so. One can put as much money as one likes into the hard end of SEN, it will inevitably drift off to the mild end of the spectrum.
As the Chair of the Select Committee rightly pointed out, low incidence SEN is exactly that—SEN that occurs rarely. It is sometimes called, “low incidence; high need; high cost.” Low incidence SEN services are generally classified as services for deaf and hearing impaired children and for blind or partially sighted children. Autistic spectrum disorder is not classified as low incidence SEN. It was in the past, but it is the fastest growing SEN. What will happen to autism services? If the provision is not defined, services for children with autism may be delegated.
Robert Flello
I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend’s extremely well-thought-out speech, which clearly shows her vast knowledge. Does she recognise the situation that I came across in one of my surgeries at the end of last week? A family came to see me about their 18-year-old son, who is now, sadly, in the criminal justice system. It took until he was 14 before he was diagnosed with autism—far too late for the proper interventions to be made. He is now 18 and in the criminal justice system.
Pat Glass
Sadly, that happens far too often. Unfortunately, when children are diagnosed with ASD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, whether they are put through the behaviour system or the autism system greatly depends on family background and the clinical specialist they see.
Andrew Bridgen
What does the hon. Lady believe to be the underlying level of SEN in the pupil population?
Pat Glass
That is a difficult question. The more severe and complex end of SEN is growing quickly, for all sorts of reasons. For example, we are the binge capital of Europe, so why are we surprised when there is an impact on complex and severe needs? I think that the figure is approximately 0.06% of the school population. It is a small proportion. The figure for children who experience some special educational need during their education is between 18 and 20%. That does not mean that all those children have SEN throughout their career. However, vulnerable children who under-achieve are a much greater proportion of the population—approximately 30%.
Let me revert to low incidence SEN. Special educational needs and admissions are the biggest parts of the ombudsman’s work. Local authorities sometimes get them right and sometimes get them wrong. They are the most contentious areas in education. I predict that the only people who will get anything out of this measure will be lawyers. Defining low incidence SEN is a lawyer’s dream. If we do not get that right now, the House will end up returning to the issue later in the year, as someone rightly said, but in the meantime, parents and children will lose out.
Educational psychology is not defined as a service for low incidence SEN pupils. Given the degree of cuts that my local authority needs to make, it is currently looking at what percentage of the educational psychology service it can reasonably cut without damaging front-line services. Low incidence SEN services do not necessarily cover autism—depending on the local authority—educational psychology services, or children with physical or medical difficulties. The Bill mentions “low incidence…disabilities”. I worked in children’s services for most of my adult life, but I have no idea what that means. I guess we must leave it to a lawyer to decide.
One thing that I am very concerned about is that parents are not involved. I have learned over the years to my cost—I have done things wrong in the past that I have learned from—that the most important people in such procedures are parents, but they will not be consulted under the Bill, which is being rushed through the House without any consultation with the organisations that support parents or with parents themselves. Frankly, the Government will come to regret that.
The hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) talked about the code of practice being an administrative issue. If he had a child with SEN, he would not see it that way. The code of practice is about children’s lives and chances, and if we lose it, it will not come back.
Rory Stewart
With respect, I have a sister with SEN. I intend no disrespect at all, but the question we are addressing today is how best to serve such people. When I make a distinction between administration and law, I am making a distinction between the end—our objective, which is to help those people—and the means to that end. I am afraid that Labour Members have confused the two. They imagine that the only means to that end is through the current local authority processes. We agree on the objective and the rights of the child and the parents, but we will achieve our objectives much more accurately if we do not try to micro-manage the process here in the House.
Pat Glass
I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but his view is not mine. I am opposing the Bill not for the sake of it because I am a Labour Member—I have learned over the years that it is not what makes me noble that matters, it is what actually works for children. If evidence were presented that convinced me that academies will deliver for SEN children or that free schools would make outcomes better for them, I would support them, but with my years of experience, I have serious concerns.
Mr Hayes
I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, who I can tell is both experienced in, and passionate about, this matter, but it is important that she sets out her views on what the existing academies have done. If she is so concerned about the effect of academies on SEN, does she feel that there has been a deleterious affect on the interests of SEN children as a result of the previous Government’s academy programme?
Pat Glass
If the Minister had been here—was it yesterday or the day before?—he would have known that I gave a very detailed speech on my concerns about academies. Children with SEN only very rarely gain admission to academies and there is concern about monitoring the progress of those who do, and a much higher proportion of SEN children are excluded from academies. That was an issue when we had only 200 academies, but if there is a much larger number, we will make the problem that much bigger. In addition, we would effectively exclude SEN children from the most high-achieving and outstanding schools.
Gavin Barwell
I am enjoying the hon. Lady’s speech, but I wish to pick her up on one point related to exclusions. The latest figures from the Department suggest that in academies the exclusion rate for pupils with SEN is five times higher than for pupils without SEN, whereas in the general maintained sector it is nine times higher. So the evidence suggests that academies are less likely to exclude pupils with SEN than the maintained sector as a whole.
Pat Glass
I would argue that academies serve poorer neighbourhoods and it is more difficult to get into an academy in the first place. People may argue that academies take a higher proportion of children with SEN than maintained schools, but as I argued earlier it is up to academies to define who is SEN and who is not, and they may have a very different tolerance level from that of maintained schools—that has certainly been my experience.
Mr Graham Stuart
I mean no disrespect to the hon. Lady’s expertise or passion in this area, but she suggests that the existing academies make it harder for children with SEN to get in than other schools. However, the only data that we have suggest that that is not true. She suggests that academies may block children with real SEN getting in and then falsely nominate children as having SEN afterwards. She needs to substantiate that, because it is a serious allegation and if true should be looked into in more detail.
Bill Esterson
Not only do I agree with my hon. Friend that some academies are artificially changing the arrangements—I am choosing my words carefully, and perhaps the Select Committee should look into this—but many maintained schools have been doing the same thing. That is something that I am familiar with from where I used to live, where schools would artificially depress the number of children described as having SEN, under pressure from local authorities, for financial reasons. There is a danger that this legislation would see that continuing with the academies. That should be looked at in greater detail, as the Chairman of the Select Committee suggests.
Pat Glass
I agree with my hon. Friend.
The biggest body blow to centrally supported specialist low incidence SEN services came from delegation targets. In order to reach delegation targets, which were mandatory, local authorities arbitrarily put over the side into schools anything that would take them to the magical 96%. In some local authorities, specialist services were lost and they have never recovered.
Charlotte Leslie
I am enjoying and being informed by the hon. Lady’s contribution, which is based on her experience. On both sides of the Committee, there is a recognition that SEN provision is inadequate. I did a study a while ago that showed that children on school action plus had higher exclusion rates than those on other forms of SEN statementing. We need to tackle a range of issues in this area, and I wonder whether we are looking at a large problem through the small angle of one clause in this Bill. The problem may be solved only by—to use the cliché—a root and branch review of the entire SEN system. That would improve the role of academies in that area as well. Perhaps the Minister could address that point as well.
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.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
In incidents such as the one she describes concerning valued services, might not an academy school look to buy those services off the local provider for the benefit of their own pupils?
Pat Glass
Yes, it could, and yes, it should. However, as the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) said yesterday, sometimes good people do bad things, and head teachers are not always as forward thinking as we would like them to be. Obviously, the best ones are, but if a school does not have any blind children, why would it buy in to a sensory service? It could also argue that, if a child wishes to attend that school, it cannot meet their needs.
Mr Ward
I must say this is a fantastic debate. I was not sure of the right time to introduce this point, but it is not always the case that, if a school has its own budget, it will do the best thing by the children. The best example is probably the provision of education social work. It might seem that the school is the client of the education social worker, but of course it is not—the child is the client. Very often, if a school is offered the money, it will buy in its own education social worker, who will be a door knocker for getting those kids into the school. Once a child is on the roll and the school is getting the funding, some schools will say, “Actually, we’re not too bothered if that person doesn’t turn up today.” Believe me, it is true! It happens—because, in many cases, schools are forced into doing it. But the child is the client, and if the best place for the child is in school, the education social worker will try to facilitate that to the best of their ability. However, if that education social worker is employed by the school, sometimes the school will let the child in, but sometimes it will not be too bothered. I have known young children who have been out of school for two years—
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Interventions, by their very nature, should be short.
Mr Hayes
I hope that I can reassure the hon. Lady, as I am anxious to achieve an Hegelian synthesis between our positions. There are two things, really. The first is that the Government will be issuing a Green Paper to look at the whole issue of SEN. She is right that we need to consider it in the round—it is an issue that the Government take seriously—and that is what we will be doing. Secondly, with your indulgence, Mr Evans, let me say that the amendments to the Bill that the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) has suggested would mean that academies would have an unqualified duty to admit pupils with SEN statements. I just wanted to place that on the record so that we can make progress.
Pat Glass
I will wind up now. I welcome the amendment that has been made. It does help and it will give confidence to parents and teachers working in the sector. However, I have real concerns about the lack of clarity. The people who will gain will be lawyers, and there is a lot more work for the SEN tribunal to do. Parents and local authorities will yet again be left without clarification, and in many cases they will be left to find their salvation in their own way. There are good local authorities and there are not so good local authorities, and it is the children in those authorities who I am concerned about.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
Thank you for the opportunity to address the House—through this Committee—for the first time, Mr Evans, in this important debate. First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), on making what I believe is his second maiden speech, and the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), who has added considerably to this debate. I do not think that I shall be able to add as much, in terms of detail.
As hon. Members would expect, I have studied previous maiden speeches and, not surprisingly, found them to be very formulaic. Although I do not intend to stray far from that formula, it would be worth recognising that change has come to this House. I look around and I see my new colleagues brimming with enthusiasm, optimism and energy—[Interruption]—well, some of them—and for this opportunity I will be eternally grateful to the good people of South Basildon and East Thurrock for sending me here. They have put great trust in me. I intend to repay that trust by being open and honest with them, and accessible and available. My one aim is to ensure not only that they have a voice, but that that voice is heard.
South Basildon and East Thurrock is based on the old Basildon seat, which has rightly been seen as a bellwether seat for many years. Despite the recent boundary changes, it is still able to claim that title, as I believe it represents a marvellous cross-section of this wonderful country. Situated just 30 miles down the Thames from this place—and yes, I have heard every single Essex joke going, so we do not need to go through those—my constituency is made up of two halves. The Basildon half consists of Basildon new town and the wards of Vange and Nethermayne, as well as Langdon Hills and the established town of Pitsea. To the south, on the Thurrock side, I have two main towns—Stanford le Hope and Corringham—and a number of rural villages, including Fobbing, Orsett, Bulphan, Horndon on the Hill, Linford and East Tilbury, and an area called The Homesteads.
The area is one of great diversity and although much of it is new, it has a rich and varied history. Basildon, as hon. Members probably well know, was one of the new towns founded in 1949, following the shortage of housing after the second world war. However, the name Basildon dates back to Saxon times and can be found on many ancient maps. Although many of the other towns and villages that I have mentioned can also claim that, with hundreds of years of history, there is one that particularly stands out: Fobbing, a village where one of the first of the uprisings that eventually led to the peasants’ revolt took place—a revolt led by Wat Tyler, who incidentally gives his name to an important local country park. Those uprisings were the beginning of the end of serfdom. How appropriate it is that just over 600 years later it is this new Government who have decided to return some power to their citizens before there is another revolution.
Mr Hancock
That is perhaps more of a question for you, Mr Evans, than for the hon. Gentleman. [Laughter.] I give way.
Pat Glass
How do I follow that? On the issue of parents, I said earlier that I am someone who has been humbled and that I have made mistakes. That is why I am saying to the Minister that there is an important role for parents. It is always harrowing to listen to the stories of parents when they know that there is an issue and that their child has needs but those needs are not being addressed. There is always a dilemma. We hear a lot about how hard up we are, about how there is very little money and so on, but there is not enough money in the world for SEN. We must face that. It becomes about priorities.
I have never met a parent who did not want the best for their child. Sometimes they have not always been able to display that in the best way—sometimes they have been very aggressive—but they still want the best for their child. In all my years of experience, however, I have never once been approached by a parent who said, “I want to open my own school”—never once. That is not to say that it does not happen because, as I said earlier, there are good local authorities and poor local authorities. I sympathise with parents who live in those areas where there is a lack of provision, particularly for autism.
Pat Glass
Oh, right—can I make one quick point? Where special schools have been set up, whether by parents or by other organisations, the difficulty is that we all want to put money and resources in at the hard end, but what inevitably tends to happen is that that drifts away. When we look at schools that have been established, with the best of intentions, for the children with the greatest need, the children tend, in some cases, to have less severe needs.
Pat Glass
No doubt the Minister will confirm this for me, but I understand that the YPLA is the rump of what was the Learning and Skills Council. If that is the case, does the hon. Gentleman share my concerns about that? I am not aware that the Learning and Skills Council has the level of SEN expertise needed to deliver on some of the things that we are discussing.
Guy Opperman
I hesitate to say that I agree absolutely, but I have great sympathy with the hon. Lady’s argument, because the local education authority will have all the educational psychologists and other areas of expertise that are required in these processes. I would question whether the alternative provision exists; indeed, I would go further than that. Everyone who has done a SENDIST case, running it through the myriad reports, will know the tremendous difficulty that exists in obtaining the right level of reports and presentation to push the thing forward. I would suggest that if people have to go to the Secretary of State, things will take much longer and be much more complicated. I return to the point that this is not me rebelling; I am just saying that the assertions of the founder of all these kinds of reforms—Lord Baker of Dorking—was clear at the outset of this process that we should keep it very simple and put the matter to the LEA, because it will be best capable of dealing with it.
I accept what the Minister said when clarifying the point approximately 15 minutes ago. He said that there is always a duty to ensure that the needs are met. That is entirely true, but anybody who does SENDIST work will know that there is a parallel duty to perform with the financial resources available. The complication is that there are genuine concerns that the financial resources will not necessarily be available in the processes that are being proposed. That particularly applies where there are special educational needs in more rural areas such as mine, where we have 1,200 square miles to cover, catchment areas the size of the M25 and an ability to provide for those needs, along with the necessary rural transport. However, I have not heard sufficient clarification that those rural transport needs will be accommodated as part of the Bill.
Briefly, let me finish by saying that I do not support the amendment, but I hope that we will receive a great deal of further explanation.