Schools White Paper

Pat Glass Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that any reform should be evidence based, and that anything else is pure ideology? In the light of the chief inspector of schools’ report published yesterday, which showed clearly that university-led initial teacher training was twice as likely to be good or outstanding as schools-led initial teacher training, will he now look at that matter again?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady has been an impressive lead Member for children’s services and education in the past, and she speaks with authority. We are publishing an evidence paper to go alongside the White Paper—the first time that has happened—which will contain the evidence base for everything that we are doing. The expansion of teaching schools is based on research by the National Federation for Educational Research, which showed that they are outstanding in the work that they do.

Funding and Schools Reform

Pat Glass Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I realise that time is short, so I have cut down enormously on what I was going to say. I shall stick to the main points. I have been privileged to spend most of my career in education. I know how schools operate, unlike most of those on the Government Front Bench, and I am therefore in the privileged position of being able to comment on the Government’s proposals and on how they are likely to impact on schools and on outcomes for children.

Given my background, I will always approach education reforms not from an ideological standpoint but from the standpoint of whether they will improve schools and outcomes for children, especially poor and vulnerable children, and those with additional difficulties, in constituencies such as mine. The question for me is whether the Government’s reforms will continue the many different improvements that we have seen, or whether they will act as an anchor on talent and aptitude.

I find it inconceivable that any Government could consider allowing just about anyone to open a free school in any type of building, without outdoor play areas, recreational space, or qualified teachers. I am sure the Secretary of State will be aware of the recent Institute of Education report, which clearly demonstrates that the more time a child spends with a support assistant, as opposed to a teacher, the less progress that child will make. It is the strength of the pedagogical environment, the specialist knowledge of the subject and the confidence and quality of the teaching experience that deliver progress. That can only come from a qualified teacher working in a qualified environment.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Pat Glass]

I am sorry, but we have very little time.

The Government are proposing a relaxation of the accountability framework in schools, so that academies and schools judged to be outstanding will be inspected only every seven years. I have to ask whether that is going to improve outcomes for schools. I have many criticisms of Ofsted, but I do not criticise its relentless pursuit of an upward trajectory in school improvement. We are all swiftest when we are chased, and that applies as much to head teachers, teachers and schools as to anything or anyone else.

The Government are seeking to abolish independent appeals panels for exclusions. I understand from my discussions with schools that that is not what they want. Head teachers and chairs of governing bodies are telling me that, while it can be very uncomfortable to appear before those independent panels, they provide valuable checks and balances in the system. The heads and chairs are concerned that, without them, they could find themselves defending their actions in court. That would not be good for schools.

The Government are also proposing a national funding formula that is distributed from central Government. However, I am more concerned with what that resource will drive into schools than with where it comes from or who delivers it. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have repeatedly said that they will protect schools funding, but when asked direct questions, they have given very few direct answers. I was pleased to hear the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) advise the Education Committee this morning that schools budgets would grow by subsuming the standards fund and the educational needs grant into the baseline, and that they would be increased by the pupil premium. If that is true, it is welcome. However, the Secretary of State needs to know that I will be checking out the position with schools in my constituency when they get their budgets in December, and if those schools, which educate some of the most deprived children in the country, have less money next year than they have this year, I will be his worst nightmare.

The Secretary of State is an English graduate, and he is fond of coming to the House and lecturing us on the teaching of history. I want to give him a lesson from my end of the curriculum. Unlike politics and philosophy, maths is an absolute science. I shall start with an easy equation. If schools in the poorest communities receive less funding next year than they did this year, and if we add that to more unemployment and poverty as a result of Government cuts, that will equal poorer standards and outcomes, not better ones.

I have looked at the reforms very carefully, and if they are going to produce better outcomes for schools, I will welcome them. However, it is my considered view that they will lead to improved outcomes for some children but poorer outcomes for most. The strapline of this Government will be less “Every child matters” and more “Actually, some children don’t matter very much at all”. That would be a tragedy for the majority of children and schools in this country. The Government appear to be following an ideological experiment with other people’s children, and it is the poorest and the most vulnerable who will lose out most.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Pat Glass Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

That is specifically why we are producing the Green Paper. We recognise how many parents feel that they continually have to battle to get the needs of their child recognised, and then battle again to make sure that those needs are catered for. We are looking at how we can make the system more transparent, how we can streamline assessment, and how we can identify need much earlier. We also want to improve parents’ choice about the provision for their child and look at transition for young people right across the piece.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Given the huge weight of evidence about the importance of early intervention for all children, but particularly for children with special educational needs—the Minister has talked about that—can she confirm for us today that the pupil premium will be paid for under-fives?

[Sarah Teather]

I said earlier that, in line with the funding premium, we have spent that money extending it to all disadvantaged two-year-olds to ensure that they have an opportunity to benefit from early education, because that will make a big difference. The hon. Lady mentions early intervention. That is why I asked Dame Claire Tickell to look specifically at how we can use the early years foundation stage and early education to identify needs, specifically special educational needs. I hope that that answers the hon. Lady’s question.

Speech Therapy Services (Children)

Pat Glass Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) on securing this important debate, which is really important to me and to thousands of children and their families across the country.

The ability to communicate effectively is a key life skill. It underpins our ability to learn and to understand, to express our views and knowledge to others, and to understand their views and knowledge in return. Without good communication skills, we are not able to take our place alongside our peers in an increasingly complex world, in which good interpersonal communication skills are now as important—sometimes more so—than good qualifications.

I apologise for stating the obvious: communication is not just about being able to speak properly. It includes receptive language skills, which is the ability to understand and make sense of what is said to us, expressive language skills, which is the ability to speak clearly and make ourselves understood, and higher-order language skills, which is the ability to use and interpret humour, inference, scepticism, irony and other non-direct language.

There are many reasons why a child might fail to develop age-appropriate communication and language. For some children, there might be a link to a neurological or physiological problem, for instance oral dyspraxia, cerebral palsy or autism, but many more of them simply do not have access to the good language and stimulation that they need from an early age, and therefore enter our schools and nurseries with few, if any, information-carrying words.

In many children, communication disorders are complex and largely hidden. The child can speak, albeit with a limited vocabulary. He—it usually is a he—can go on to learn mechanically and by rote. On any crude measure of progress, such as reading age, the child might seem to be making good progress, but careful and specialist assessment by people such as speech therapists can identify that their grasp and understanding of what they have learned by rote is limited. They might appear to read well, but that reading is mechanical, with little or no understanding. As they have limited language and vocabulary, and their reading is mechanical rather than conscious and creative, their language-into-literacy skills do not develop as they should. That is largely why we have so many children failing to get good reading skills and go on to gain good skills in other areas. They do not have the basic understanding that they need to learn more complex concepts. That can lead to frustration in the classroom, and as a result a child can either become withdrawn, which can be misdiagnosed as a learning difficulty, or have tantrums and difficult behaviour, which can be misdiagnosed as a conduct or a behavioural disorder.

There are more than a million children in this country with speech, language and communication needs that are not the result of language neglect, lack of stimulation or other external factors. That means that in the average classroom there can be two or three children with such communication difficulties. Of that group, a large cohort has specific language impairment, meaning that their difficulty is not related to other general issues such as learning difficulties, hearing impairment, autism or cerebral palsy.

A child with a specific language impairment might well be cognitively able, which is a point made by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys. They will struggle, however, to understand the vocabulary used in the average classroom. A significantly greater number of children have speech, language and communication needs that could be classified as caused by language neglect and lack of stimulation in their early years. Those children need early and appropriate intervention. They and their needs cannot be ignored, nor can they be treated as less deserving simply because their needs are, in a sense, acquired rather than organic. Without appropriate intervention, those children will be diagnosed as conduct disordered or delinquent and will go on into a self-fulfilling prophecy, which will cost this country millions and millions of pounds.

We know from very clear evidence what happens to children with speech, language and communication disorders who do not get appropriate intervention and support. Youth offending services identify that 70% of young offenders have an underlying speech, language or communication disorder. The chief inspector of prisons tells us that more than 60% of prisoners have an underlying speech, language or communication disorder, as do a significant proportion of adults accessing our mental health services.

[Nick Smith]

Is it not astonishing that 70% of people in our criminal justice system have a communication disability or disorder? Should not the Government invest in specific speech and language therapy support, particularly for the young people in our criminal justice system, so that they have a chance to get back into proper life?

[Pat Glass]

I absolutely agree, and I can go on from that.

The National Autistic Society has identified that 70% of young people with autism, the vast majority of whom have an underlying language and/or communication disorder even if that is restricted to higher-order language difficulties, also have a mental health difficulty. Shelter tells us that a significant proportion of people classified as homeless have an underlying language and communication disorder. I could go on and on.

However, those issues are not limited to language and communication disorders; they are seen across many areas of children’s health, such as physiotherapy, occupational health and, one of the huge ones for me, child and adolescent mental health services. Review after review has identified that, to address the issues, diagnosis needs to be timely and carefully carried out by specialists—speech and language therapists—and services need to be appropriate to need and easily accessible, a point made by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys. Specialists in education and health need to work in partnership with the child and the family at the centre, not separately, and not, in the case of health, in a clinic far removed from the day-to-day life of the child in the classroom.

Unlike, I suspect, many other Members here, I do not see more and more speech and language therapists as the only answer. Although I want to add my thanks to specialist speech therapists for the incredible work that they do, and although I consider them part of the way forward, they are not the only answer. In my view and experience, early intervention and appropriate provision include four fundamental necessities. The first is better training for all early years education staff—teachers and support staff. Given that we know that in some cases there will be up to five children with a significant speech, language and communication disorder in an early years classroom, it seems reasonable that every such classroom should have within it one adult—a teacher or a specialist support assistant—who has additional experience or qualifications in this area. I was an assistant director of education in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) a number of years ago, and we made that a requirement of our accessibility strategy. As a result, we saw a shift in the language-into-literacy issues—in the communication difficulties that were preventing children from learning to read and to progress in other areas.

Secondly, language development needs to be an integral part of the whole curriculum. The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys talked about pulling children out of lessons and classrooms for one-to-one speech therapy sessions. Such sessions are isolated from what is going on in the child’s classroom, lessons and life, and are much less valuable than ensuring that the child is surrounded by a rich and appropriate vocabulary each and every day, and that lessons are planned and delivered to include language development as key steps.

Thirdly, specialist speech and language therapists need to be actively involved in curriculum design and delivery and in-service training for staff in schools. Finally, we need an accountability framework that understands the importance of language development in learning, and holds not only head teachers and governors, but those who commission children’s health services, to account for the training of staff and the outcomes of children with speech and language difficulties. By not intervening in an appropriate, timely and systemic manner we stand aside and allow generations of children to be labelled behaviourally disordered, conduct-disordered or odd and difficult, or as having learning difficulties. That is wrong and unnecessary, and too often it blights the lives of those children and their families.

As the Minister is here, I want to make a further plea to her to consider transferring the funding for children’s heath services to local authorities alongside funding for public health. It will not be sufficient funding, but at least it and the bulk of the responsibility will be in the same place, which will give parents a little more to hang their hats on when arguing for services.

Again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys on securing this important debate. I will work positively with anyone, on either side of the Chamber, who highlights these matters and is prepared to work with me to address them.

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

We have 14 minutes until wind-ups begin, and six colleagues are trying to catch my eye, so contributions of around seven or eight minutes would be most welcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

The Minister spoke about early intervention, which has huge support. However, we are hearing fairly reliable but worrying reports that the much-trumpeted pupil premium will not be paid for children under the age of five. Will the Minister confirm that it will be paid for all children in education from the age of two, and not be restricted to those over the age of five?

[Sarah Teather]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the consultation closed just before the comprehensive spending review. We will be making a much more detailed announcement on the pupil premium shortly, but we want to ensure that local authorities know much more about the scheme when they get their settlement.

I was about to speak about some of the issues raised by the hon. Lady in her speech. Early identification is vital for the child and the family; as she said, it will reduce costly interventions later. It is essential that more timely referrals are made to specialist services. That is why I asked Dame Claire Tickell, who is leading a review on the early years foundation stage, to look specifically at how to improve early identification of such problems by the EYFS. She is leading the process at the moment, and she will soon be reporting her findings to the Government.

For the same reason, we have extended the two-year-old offer to significantly more disadvantaged young children. About 130,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds will benefit from 15 hours of early education a week. That point was raised by a number of Members. Indeed, the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) said that children often arrive at nursery without the required language skills because they have not been exposed to language in the usual way. Offering high-quality early education is vital in giving those children the chance to pick up those skills.

The hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) spoke about Sure Start centres. Many already provide speech and language therapy, but more use of such evidence-based programmes is definitely part of the reform programme that the Government want to institute. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), who is responsible for public health, recently confirmed the Government’s intention during this Parliament to recruit and train 4,200 health visitors. Health visitors will be key in picking up on speech delay in very young children, ensuring that they are referred to the appropriate services, including Sure Start centres.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Pat Glass Excerpts

Monday 26th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Redwood]

I have said that I love democracy, and it is often a good idea to give more people more votes. However, let me deal directly with the issue. Parents are not without powers or influence in this situation; if they were, I would immediately sign up to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Southport. I suspect, however, that Ministers will argue, like me, that it would be a nice addition but is unnecessary because there are other checks and balances in the system.

Let us consider those elements. First, there is an elected local authority that will have a lot of influence and control over these schools. Its voice will be heard because it has considerable influence over the appointments of the very people who will be making this proposal or decision for each school. The local authority often has members on the governing body, and the governing body has parent representatives. If the parents became alarmed by the way in which the head teacher and the senior governors were moving, they would presumably make their voice heard through the parent governors or use their ability to change those governors to make the point.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

The evidence suggests that it takes seven years for a school to gain or lose a reputation, so it is not correct to say that the parents have this power to change things immediately. That is not going to happen—it will take a long time, and in the meantime children will lose out.

[Mr Redwood]

That may well be the case generally, but not in this situation. Changing to an academy is a one-off event of some significance in a school’s life, so parents would be well aware of it and the school would communicate with them. If the parents were alarmed, I am sure they would make their views known. I know that parents of children in my local area are well attuned to what is happening in their local school, and if they are alarmed by something that is going on, they soon raise it. They can do so directly with their councillors, with their MP or with the school’s governors.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Ms Primarolo. It has been an interesting debate so far and, clearly, more Members wish to contribute to it.

The Government are in a mess on consultation. There are all sorts of worries and concerns on both sides of the Committee about consultation and what it actually means in practice for both local communities and individual schools across the country. This is a live issue for the Government, because we are supposed to be in an era of new politics, which is about localism—involving, talking to and empowering local people and communities—yet the Government are unclear about what that means in respect of schools.

Under the Bill in its current form, a governing body and head teacher can, effectively, apply to become an academy and be fast-tracked through that process if they are outstanding, and it is the Secretary of State who makes the final decision. This is therefore a hugely centralising measure that completely bypasses the local community, the local authority and anyone of influence in a local area. The Government can state clearly in the Bill that that is not their intention and they do not wish that to happen.

I take on board the point that there are many good governing bodies and that we should not impinge on individual governors and head teachers who work extremely hard, but they operate on the basis of what they consider to be best for their individual school whereas it is incumbent upon us here to pass laws that not only look towards the interests of individual schools but address such issues within the context of the education system as a whole. The Government’s intention is that thousands of schools will become academies and hundreds will be fast-tracked through the process but, as I said last week, I think we will simply be taking a leap in the dark, with no real idea where this will end up.

The Minister must tell us how many schools have applied to become academies and how many he anticipates will be academies in September 2010. The press release that the Department for Education sent out at the beginning of this process on 2 June told us 1,000 schools had applied for academy freedoms, but that is not what it meant to say. It meant that 1,000 schools had expressed an interest in that, but where are we now in this regard? Where have those schools got to in respect of consultation? Who will they be talking to in August? Which governors are consulting which local authorities? Which governors are talking to which parents? Which governing bodies are talking to which communities? What consultation is going on, given that the Secretary of State has expressly told this House that he wants as many outstanding schools as possible to be fast-tracked to academy status in September? “Not a clue,” is the answer from the Government. Any reasonable and rational person would say it is difficult to have such consultations when schools are on holiday. I accept that—we all accept that—but in that case the Government should not set out as one of the Bill’s policy objectives that large numbers of schools will become academies.

The Government have not stated what consultation they expect the schools that are being fast-tracked to academy status to be involved in. They have not set before the Committee what the process will be by which they as a Government monitor that, other than to say that there is a point of contact at the Department for Education. What on earth does that mean—a phone call, perhaps, or the odd letter, or a couple of e-mail exchanges? What evidence will be collected to ensure that the measures in the Bill—even the measure on this limited consultation—are followed? The issue of legal challenge was rightly raised. There will be a legal challenge if the Department cannot give adequate explanations—other than what it has given so far, which is extremely woolly—in respect of even the limited consultative process in the Bill, with the pre-commencement later on in it. If it cannot do that, there is a real problem.

[Pat Glass]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend agrees with me about what is happening in a school that is outside but close to my constituency, which may affect children in my constituency. The head teacher and a small number of governors have made an application for academy status and it is being fast-tracked, but the head teacher is retiring on 31 August. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is contemptuous, not only to children and to parents and to the local community, but to the new head teacher who is due to take over a school which is going to change in character and is not going to be the school to which he applied? That is what is happening as a result of this Bill being rushed through this House.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Pat Glass Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

With respect and much gratitude, I thank the Committee.

[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.

[Pat Glass]

I accept that that is what the data suggest. I stand here with 25 years of experience and I am simply giving the Committee the benefit of that experience.

[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.

[Pat Glass]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The experiences of those of us who have worked in the education system might be very different from the experiences of those who have used it.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[The First Deputy Chairman]

The hon. Lady must intervene briefly.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

The proposal at present is that the LEA will not be taking over, and that the matter will go first to the Young People’s Learning Agency and then, in theory, to the Secretary of State.

[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.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Pat Glass Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

That is a fair point. We want all schools to improve their standards. That is not my point. My point is that allowing only outstanding schools to let rip in this way is likely to cause problems. The hon. Gentleman needs to ask why the Bill does not specifically provide that outstanding schools should or must co-operate and reach an agreement with an underperforming school. As it stands, it is a permissive part of the Bill: it is a good thing to do; it would be nice if those outstanding schools did that. They should do so, but there is no “must” about it. I am not sure how this would work in respect of the programme motion, but the hon. Gentleman might like to consider tabling an amendment formally to require outstanding schools to partner other schools—special schools or whatever—that may be next door to them, but are not satisfactory and are not delivering the standard of education that they want. If he did that, I would look forward to considering whether we could support it.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I am slightly concerned that words such as “freedom” are being used in this context. It is one of those concepts like “apple pie” and “mother’s milk”, which nobody can disagree with. Given that we have a personalised curriculum and given that much work has been done with head teachers to see what can be developed and offered at key stages 3 and 4, my concern is that we are effectively granting the freedom to disapply the curriculum from many vulnerable children and to restrict what is offered on the curricular diet to certain groups of children. I fear that head teachers will say, “There’s no point in that child learning French; he can barely speak English. Sorry.”

[Vernon Coaker]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. There is a clear tension. We need to ensure that, where appropriate, schools are given the freedom to innovate and to pursue the important objectives they want, but that we do so in a way that does not disadvantage some children.

As I was saying, this goes to heart of the Bill and explains why we tabled amendment 28 to take special schools out of the Bill so that they cannot become academies. If we give those special schools that freedom, there is a potential for it to impact adversely on the entitlements of other children in an area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker]

My hon. Friend underlines my point. I consider it ridiculous that the Bill allows consultation to take place after an order. There should be a requirement that, at the very least, it should take place beforehand, and those whom it is appropriate to consult should be listed. He is also right to draw attention to the problems caused by the Building Schools for the Future fiasco.

[Pat Glass]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the pattern of special educational needs in this country is changing fast, particularly at the more severe and complex end of the spectrum? The pattern of attendance at special schools is completely different from that of seven years ago. If we allow special schools to become academies and to remain almost the same for seven years, we shall risk creating a special school system that will be unable to cope with the changing pattern of need.

[Vernon Coaker]

I was going to make the same point, but it has been very well made by my hon. Friend, who brings her own expertise, knowledge and experience to the debate. Her valuable point is now on the record, and no doubt the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) will respond to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker]

If I were going to make a party political point, I would go away now to find out how many special schools closed under the previous Conservative Government. May I just say to the hon. Gentleman that the policy objective, which I thought had cross-party support, was to include as many young people as possible in mainstream education? If that is a policy objective, clearly some special schools will close and some special school places will not be available because we will have decided that we can provide perfectly properly for those young people in a mainstream setting. As one of his colleagues said, the clear point is that this has to be a matter on which parents choose. However, the hon. Gentleman did not say that, did he? His question should have been whether I am certain that every parent has had the free choice that they should have had. It should not have been the party political point that he tried to make about the number of special school places that went.

I say to the hon. Gentleman that every parent should have a proper choice about what provision is best for their child—be it a special school or a mainstream school. Alongside that, it is a laudable and absolutely correct policy objective to ensure that as far as possible—if this provision can be made for them—young people, whatever their difficulty, should be provided for and educated in a mainstream school. There are examples of brilliant education provision in mainstream education for young people with some of the most difficult learning problems. Unfortunately, for some that provision cannot be made and provision is instead made for them in special schools. He has doubtless seen in his constituency, as I have seen in mine, the brilliance of the provision that is then made for them. I say to him again that the question is about parental choice; it is not about trying to make a party political point about the number of places.

[Pat Glass]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we are dealing with one of the educational myths? Special schools may have closed under the previous Government, but in fact the number of special school places increased. Where special schools did close it was because they were simply not good enough, and they were replaced with excellent special schools or excellent provision in mainstream education.

[Vernon Coaker]

I totally agree with that.

This has been an excellent debate. May I finish by saying that I think all Members from across the House would agree that when we debate special education, not just special educational needs, and the issue of special schools, we do not pay sufficient tribute to the work of the teachers in special schools? That is the case notwithstanding our difference about whether special schools should become academies. We profoundly disagree with that approach, for some of the reasons that I have set out. It is a leap in the dark and we have no idea where it will end up. However, at least we have had the opportunity to praise special schools, to examine their work and to try to understand this issue. No doubt, the Minister will try, in her response, to allay the Committee’s fears a little more about what this will mean for special schools.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Pat Glass Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Coming from my background, having worked for 25 years in education and particularly in special educational needs, I am used to making decisions about children and young people based upon what works for them and what is in their best interests, not upon ideology or my own philosophical beliefs. I am therefore concerned about the speed with which the Bill is being rushed through the House and the impact that that will have on children with special educational needs. I ask the Secretary of State, although he has left the Chamber, to think carefully about that matter.

Having examined the Bill in some detail, I do not believe that there has been any detailed analysis of its impact on vulnerable children, particularly those with special educational needs. I am particularly concerned about two things, based on what we know about the small number of academies that currently exist. First, we know that that group of children has not had a good deal in admissions, accountability and exclusion. I am concerned that if we increase the number of academies massively without considering in detail the impact that it will have on that vulnerable group of children, we will simply make the problem much greater.

We know that the educational achievement of vulnerable children—those with SEN, those living in care and those living in poverty—is lower than the average in the school population. Local authority managers of services such as admissions at least try to ensure that those children are not systematically disadvantaged when it comes to admission to good schools. By taking admissions out of the hands of local authorities and handing them over to academies to administer on their own behalf, we run the risk of taking any pretence of fairness out of the system and systematically disadvantaging the already disadvantaged.

Currently, local authorities have no power to name an academy on a statement of special educational needs, even when a parent particularly wants it and the local authority that has assessed the needs of the child in question believes that the academy can meet that child’s needs. I have come across that a number of times as an assistant director, when I have looked carefully at a child’s assessment and believed that an academy can meet their needs, and when the parent particularly wants their child to go to that academy, but the academy simply refuses to consider the point.

[Bill Esterson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that another problem with the Bill is that the framework does not require academies to have special educational needs co-ordinators who are qualified, with appropriate training? That is another weakness of the SEN provisions.

[Pat Glass]

My hon. Friend is right. When will we realise that children with special educational needs need specialists? That is why they are special—they require specialists. It is foolish to say that anyone in a school whom the head teacher chooses to act as an unqualified support assistant can take the part of an SEN co-ordinator.

Currently, cases where an academy decides that it does not want to take a child or cannot meet the child’s needs go to an adjudicator. That takes valuable time and seems designed to put off all but the most determined parents. Parents of children with SEN already have difficult lives and we seem to be putting up additional, systematic barriers to prevent them from securing a place at a local academy that they believe can meet their child’s needs. I fear that that will lead to selective admissions through the back door in the new breed of academies and will make the situation that much worse for so many more children.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

The hon. Lady is making a persuasive case and I share some of her concerns. If my memory of the equalities impact assessment is correct, existing academies take rather more statemented children and those with school support and school support plus—I think that I am getting my terminology wrong—than the average school. On the evidence so far, it does not look as if academies fail to take on their fair share of children with special needs.

[Pat Glass]

The picture varies throughout the country. Some schools in some parts of the country take a larger percentage of children with special educational needs, but some schools in other parts of the country—I think that it is particularly true in London—do not. It is another postcode lottery. It depends on how good the system is across the piece.

[Mr Stuart]

Does the hon. Lady think that the pupil premium model might be useful in ensuring that children from the poorest families have additional resources to go with them, which in some ways makes them more attractive to schools? Does she agree that a system that provides incentives for schools to attract and look after the most vulnerable is better than one of bureaucratic diktat and fiat that forces children on schools that are reluctant to have them? Could not the former prove more productive in the end?

[Pat Glass]

That is the problem—we simply do not know. We have not got the detail. I do not know what the pupil premium will bring. I was talking to a head teacher today who told me, “On the face of it, the premium looks attractive. However, I suspect that when I get it, I will actually lose the standards fund and lose additional educational needs funding. I may end up with less, not more funding for my vulnerable children.” That is the problem. The devil is in the detail and we do not have the detail. The Bill is being rushed through, without giving us the opportunity to look at those matters.

I am concerned that academies will be reluctant to admit vulnerable children because, through no fault of their own, they do not perform as well as their peers. The likelihood of vulnerable children gaining admission, particularly to outstanding schools, will therefore be reduced. I could see nothing in the Bill—I have looked at it carefully—about making the admission of vulnerable children a must. I know only too well that telling head teachers and governors that they should admit is very different from telling them that they must do so. I would like further reassurances that academies’ admissions policies will ensure that children with special educational needs are not disadvantaged.

I am concerned about the accountability framework, particularly for children with SEN. There is no clarity in the Bill on where a parent goes for redress if an academy fails to deliver on SEN, whether the child is statemented or not. Currently, parents can go to the local authority if a school fails to deliver, and ultimately to the SEN tribunal. If a school fails to deliver, a parent has redress through judicial review, but there is no clarity on whether such redress will be available under the Bill, so parents simply will not know where to go if an academy fails to deliver.

It is unclear who will monitor the progress of SEN children in academies. If we have learned anything in the past 10 or 15 years, it is that when the spotlight is put on the performance of vulnerable children, they improve. We have seen that with looked-after children. If there is no clarity on who is monitoring the performance of SEN children, they will simply be lost in the system.

Before my voice packs up altogether, I shall move on to exclusions. I have worked in a number of local authorities, in each of which I have analysed permanent and fixed-term exclusions. The pattern is the same. In my experience, 75% of children who are excluded on a fixed-term or permanent basis have special educational needs. Of those, my analysis shows that 100% have either behavioural difficulties linked to autistic spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

TreeHouse, a charity that works with children with autism, has found that SEN children are nine times more likely to be excluded from school, and the situation is more acute in academies. If we massively increase the number of academies, we will increase the problem.

[Andrew Percy]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful point, with which I have some sympathy, but she must also accept that the Bill gives schools the ability to tailor their curriculum much more. She will know that part of the problem of dealing with some of our more difficult children is that the curriculum is too restrictive for them. The Bill will give schools more freedom, so it has some positive aspects.

[Pat Glass]

I entirely agree that part of the exclusion problem is the formalisation of the curriculum, which in many cases happens far too early. However, my experience of academies does not give me hope. I do not expect that vast numbers of academies will amend the curriculum to meet the needs of SEN children. Which children are failing? The gap between those who achieve the most and those at the bottom is greatest at outstanding or high-achieving schools. Although I welcome freedom in the curriculum, I have no hope that it will be used for SEN children.

The proposals in the Bill are not well thought out and they are likely to affect adversely the education and life chances of children with SEN. They will make the already difficult lives of children and parents harder, and they will become part of the problem, not part of the solution. I ask simply that we take the time to look at the Bill in relation to the most vulnerable children in our society. If we take that time, the chances are that we will make the Bill that much better for that many more children.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

May I refer the hon. Lady to clause 1(7), which strengthens the position of children with special educational needs compared with what it was when the previous Government were in power? Under the Bill, academies are on the same footing as maintained schools.

[Pat Glass]

They are on the same footing in terms of funding, but we have no guarantees about what that funding means. That is what I meant by the problem with the detail. The Bill talks about funding without going into the details and saying what it means. What is the pupil premium and does it affect additional educational needs funding? Who will be responsible for non-statemented pupils? All those details are simply not in the Bill.

Education Funding

Pat Glass Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and representatives from Bedford.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I have written repeatedly to the Secretary of State over the past six weeks asking him to confirm the funding for the three Durham academies, in Consett, Belmont and Stanley. I have to say that it is absolutely disgraceful for the information to come out as it has, and it has meant that Members are having to stand up in this place and individually beg for information from the Secretary of State.

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady asks about the two academies. In my statement I made it clear that Consett and Stanley academies—[Interruption.] I will have to write to the hon. Lady about Belmont in due course, but Consett and Stanley form part of our review.

Low Educational Attainment

Pat Glass Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) on securing the debate. This is my first outing in Westminster Hall as a Minister, and it is pleasing that the debate was initiated by a Liberal Democrat, with a response from a Liberal Democrat and a Liberal Democrat in the Chair. I know that the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) wants to intervene later, but she will forgive me for momentarily making a smug Liberal Democrat point.

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. He is an active campaigner on the issue, and he shares my passion for matters of social justice. I hope that his securing the debate so early is an indication of the issues that he will champion in the five years of the Parliament. He shares the ambition of the coalition Government and, indeed, that of hon. Members across the House to secure better futures for children who live in poverty. What he said about the importance of early years education was music to my ears. I am grateful to him for making those points today.

My hon. Friend argued persuasively that deprivation and fairness really matter. They matter to individuals and communities, and they matter to the success of our country. Sadly, as he said, where children live and the families who they live with are still uniquely strong predictors of how their lives will turn out. For example, statistics show that a baby born in Harlesden in my constituency of Brent Central is likely to die more than 10 years before a child born in neighbouring Kensington, which is but a short drive away. That is unacceptable. It is an outrage that those statistics should still be so relevant. That is what why I am so passionate about fighting on this matter.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for giving way. In the past 10 or 15 years, organisations and national strategies have resulted in our becoming the most data-rich nation in Europe and possibly the world. Those data tell us that the attainment of our highest-achieving pupils is as good as, if not better than, that of those in Europe or the USA; we are pipped only by a specific group of countries. However, the attainment of our lowest-achieving pupils is almost an international disgrace. Over the past three or four years, Government policy has shifted towards narrowing the gap between the highest and lowest attaining pupils—between pupils living in poverty and the rest, looked-after children and their peers, and pupils with special educational needs and others.

People who, like me, have spent 25 years working at all levels with the worst-attaining pupils, disadvantaged children and children living in poverty were mentally running around the country punching the air because such children were suddenly at the forefront of Government policy. I seek a reassurance from the Minister that the spotlight of the inspection framework and considering not only raw attainment—

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

Order. We will have to shorten that intervention a bit. It is more like a speech.

[Pat Glass]

Perhaps that is because I am a new Member. I want to know that considering such things as levels of progress will not change.

[Sarah Teather]

I understand the point that the hon. Lady was trying to make, even if it was cut short. I reassure her that I am absolutely committed to gap-narrowing. For me, that is the point of early years education and early years provision. We may disagree about some of the ways to measure whether the gap has narrowed. We may debate the matter in more detail over the next few years, but I suspect that we share the same commitment to ensuring that the investment in early years provision narrows the gap—the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East. I shall say a little more about that later.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) makes a good point. I represent an inner-city seat, and I see the consequences of poverty writ large in my advice surgeries and in my constituency office every day. However, the problem is not confined to the cities; it is very evident also in rural areas. What he said about the dispersal of families, which makes it more challenging for local authorities and other service providers to tackle the problem, was a point well made, and I am well aware of the issue. The policies that the coalition Government have put in place will include specific mechanisms to deal with child poverty.

The uncomfortable truth is that the link between deprivation and low attainment exists across the country—not only in my constituency but everywhere. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East gave some statistics, but those given to me by my officials are even more stark. They suggest that children from poorer backgrounds have a smaller vocabulary at the age of three than their peers and that, by the age of four, they have heard 30 million fewer words. Whether the figure is 20 million or 30 million, the statistics are stark. Again, that is a challenge for early years provision. Low-ability children from rich families overtake high-ability children from poorer families at primary school. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the gap widens as the children grow older; children eligible for free school meals are half as likely to achieve five or more GCSEs at grade A to C, including English and maths, as those from wealthier backgrounds.

I welcome the opportunity to debate the subject and to consider some of the reforms needed to break the link between deprivation and low attainment. It goes to the heart of the coalition’s plans to build a fairer, more responsible and freer society that we should have policies to tackle the problem on all fronts. That could be done through better-focused early years provision, which I mentioned a moment ago, or through giving families more practical support or ensuring that children from poorer backgrounds get the same chance at school as their peers.

The question, therefore, is whether we consider deprivation to be an automatic barrier to success, or whether good teaching, good early years provision and good government can all play a part in helping to reduce inequality and unfairness. I passionately believe that that is a role for the Government, and we believe that those factors can bring that about. That is why we have already set about tackling deprivation, not only as an end in itself; we are also tackling the systemic weaknesses that highlight and deepen those divisions as children go through life.

For example, we are committed to hitting the 2020 child poverty target already laid out in legislation. We also plan a review of poverty and life chances, which will be chaired by Frank Field. We have set out a school reform programme. Most critically, we have announced the pupil premium. Finally, of course, we have decided to recruit more health visitors for Sure Start children’s centres to help the most disadvantaged families.