Budget Resolutions

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Two things: I thank the hon. Lady for giving me notice of her point of order; and we actually have the relevant Minister, who wants to respond now, which may be helpful.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Penny Mordaunt)]

The Social Security Advisory Committee decided not to take the regulations on formal reference or to consult further. It made two recommendations, which we are considering and will respond to in due course. As the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has said from the Dispatch Box, there is no change to our policy, our budget or the award amounts. We can be confident that no one’s award will be altered, all things being equal, if and when they are reassessed, because prior to the relevant case, the case law was conflated and confused, and therefore no assessment providers changed their scoring and no DWP decision makers altered or increased the award amounts. It is very important that we reassure people on that benefit that there is no change to the policy, to the budget or to the award amounts, and that if their condition is the same, they will continue to receive the award.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Minister’s statement is in direct contradiction to the letter that she has received, and I seek further—[Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

As the hon. Lady acknowledges, the changes to the citizenship curriculum have been widely supported. She draws a distinction between what happens in one national curriculum area and others—as the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) has pointed out, academies are not subject to the national curriculum. If we look at the national curriculum overall, we see that there is an absolute requirement in science to teach sex education, and sex and relationships education is part of the national curriculum expectation for all schools.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

Is the Secretary of State aware of the problems still being caused by the private finance initiative building programme? Miltoncross school in Portsmouth has ambitions to become an academy, but cannot make progress owing to unresolved issues in its PFI contract. Will the Secretary of State meet me regarding that problem and assist in getting it resolved?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, I will.

Children and Families Bill

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who made very important points about the need to make sure that the regulations that follow the Bill protect and enhance not only the rights of the children and young people concerned but the rights of their parents and families. Accountability must be at the heart of this process. It was the lack of accountability and the resulting problems that we all encountered as constituency MPs—and, indeed, as parents—that led to the developments that have seen the introduction of this welcome Bill. I am delighted to support its Second Reading. I am very encouraged by the degree of cross-party support that we are seeing in the Chamber and will, I hope, see in Committee.

The road to the Bill has been a long one, and many of us who have a great interest in these issues were sometimes champing at the bit for the pace to quicken. However, having seen the results of the extensive consultation process and the hard work of the various Select Committees, I am pleased that we have reached this Bill at last rather than at first, as it were, which will make it a better and stronger piece of legislation.

As a member of the Justice Committee, I took a particular interest, with colleagues, in the family law provisions, particularly the debate about parental involvement, as it will now rightly be called. However, I will deal mainly with the provisions relating to special educational needs, which form a large part of the Bill.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work on special educational needs, particularly autism. Does he share my view that children with a middle to low special educational need such as pragmatic language disorders, dyslexia and autism are often short-changed by local authorities, and that the more we can do to strengthen the hand of parents, the greater the amount of provision that will be available to those children?

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. A large cohort of children and young people with disabilities that have been diagnosed will not be covered by the new plans. Some, but not all, were formerly covered by the school action and school action plus programmes. I hope that the Bill will be a catalyst, not only to improve the lot of those young people who will be subject to the new plans, but to improve training and awareness and the system so that it encourages the earlier identification and diagnosis of such problems so that they do not develop to a degree that necessitates intervention in the form of a plan later on.

That is why it is vital that we do not regard this as merely an education Bill—it is also a health Bill and a justice Bill, and it relates to social care. The joined-up thinking—not just at Government level, but at local level—that I and many others have been talking about for so long is vital if we are to make real progress. The provisions that impose a duty on local authorities to work jointly with other agencies, such as the national health service and local health bodies, are absolutely key to make sure that we can deliver for young people.

As I have said, early identification of disabilities such as speech, language and communication disorders— I think that will be enhanced by the expansion of the health visitor system with the injection of another 4,200 health visitors by 2015—will be an essential part of the work that will have to accompany the passage of the Bill. If we do not achieve a fully integrated health and education check at the age of two and a half— I know that that is one of the Government’s key ambitions—we will miss an important trick.

When the all-party group on autism, which I have the pleasure of chairing, reported on these proposals last year, we looked in particular at the need to address the question of transition. Although I am delighted that the Bill extends the provision of education, health and care plans for young people up to the age of 25, it is essential that 25 does not become the new cliff edge. More work needs to be done to ensure that duties are imposed on local authorities and others to provide for those important transition years. Many young people with special educational needs take time to develop. They do not abide by the usual milestones, but go at their own pace and do things in their own time, which is why the extension is so important. We do not want to see the good work that can be done up to the age of 25 wasted by a lack of provision for the transition to adulthood. I also hope that the Bill will make provision to support those who fall in and out of education—a number of people do so for various reasons, some of which are health-related—to get back into it.

Much has been made of clause 69 and the sad exclusion of young people in detention. That, to my mind, is something of an admission of defeat. More than 70% of young people in detention have some form of speech, language or communication disorder. We cannot ignore that cohort. In fact, we ignore them at our peril. I want concerted action to be taken, not only by the Department for Education but by the Ministry of Justice, to make sure that effective provision to address the special needs of those in custody keeps pace with the welcome reforms.

I look forward to the publication of the draft code of practice and hope that the new code will be much more of a living instrument than its predecessor, which has not kept pace with changes in provisions or in priorities. It has to be a living document that will adapt and change over time.

Much has been said about the local offer. It must combine the enterprise and initiative of many local authorities and agencies with a national framework from which those who commission services can seek guidance and support. Blending those two factors will be essential, for example for families with children with special educational needs who, for work or for other reasons, have to move around the country and want to see similar provision in the town or city in which they are going to live. That form of passporting is important in ensuring that there is consistent provision across England.

The position of those who do not fall within the care plans is of genuine concern to us all. However, it is my belief that the Bill, which is the most important reform of special educational needs provision since the Education Act 1981, goes a long way towards addressing the genuine concerns of professionals, parents and all those who have campaigned so assiduously in the sector. I pay tribute to the Minister and his colleagues for the commitment, passion and hard work that they have put in to make this a very useful foundation for success.

Life-saving Skills in Schools

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Anne Marie Morris]

My hon. Friend gives me added ammunition and I am delighted to hear what has happened in her community. That is absolutely first rate.

Although we talk mainly about heart attacks, there are more cases of cardiac arrest generally but we are not necessarily as aware of them. A person can suffer an arrest if they lose an excessive amount of blood, suffer a lack of oxygen, become very hot or very cold, or have a blood clot on the lung. It could happen to anybody. It does not have to be someone who suffers from heart disease or is elderly; it could happen to any of us here.

As was alluded to earlier, 60,000 cardiac arrests happen outside hospitals—two thirds in the home and one third in public. In the public arena there is often a witness, and in half those cases somebody who would be able to do something if they were properly trained. Irreversible brain damage to an individual who is not helped can take place in very few minutes. Every minute counts and there is a 10% reduction in someone’s chances of survival for every minute that passes. That must be put in context with the time the ambulance takes to arrive. The target at the moment is eight minutes, and 75% of ambulances make that. If we do our maths, however, we can see that it does not leave long to get professionals to the site.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not just about heart attacks? Unbelievably, a four-year-old in my constituency who is a carer for her mother undertook training with the local ambulance crew. She was able to put her mother in the recovery position and managed to save her life. That was at four years old.

[Anne Marie Morris]

That is a wonderful example of what can be done. There is often a sense that this issue applies only to older children, but younger children can also learn valuable skills.

Autism

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I, too, wish to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), who has been a champion for people with autism and their families. I thank him for the opportunity he has given us to raise issues of great importance to our constituents. His debate is timely, not just because of the anniversary mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), but because the Palace of Westminster is being visited today by PAWS—Parents Autism Workshops and Support—which was set up by Dogs for the Disabled to bring together parents and carers of children with autism to share their experiences and explore the helping potential that a dog might have within their family. I pay tribute to its work and to the work of all the volunteers, whether they be bipeds or quadrupeds.

High special educational needs are well catered for in my area, but middle to low need provision is much more patchy. Autism, Asperger’s, pragmatic language disorders and dyslexia make up a huge amount of my casework. I have huge admiration for the parents who come to my surgeries and are fighting for their children against a system that sets their kids up repeatedly to fail before any help is at hand. The daughter of my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon is lucky to have him as her dad, as we all know that he has skills and is able to make the case against a local authority or other agency. Many of the parents we deal with are not similarly equipped, so it is great that we are speaking up for them.

Let me touch on some of the main challenges that parents present to me in my surgeries, many of them echoed in previous speeches. The first is getting a statement. It takes a huge amount of time, as the process is not synchronised with the school year or other events going on in the child’s life. We need a much more pragmatic and flexible approach to the evidence we gather. The process of getting a statement sometimes seems to be an excuse for doing nothing in the meantime. Considering that it can take 12 months or more in some cases, I think that is a scandal.

Secondly, there is a huge lack of information for parents out there. Local education authorities are supposed to publicise provision regardless of the sector in which it sits, but they certainly do not do that in all cases. Often parents who are trying to establish what are the best options for their child will receive a letter from the LEA saying merely that their needs will be taken care of by school action plus. When they try to find out what that actually means—what practical stuff will be done, by whom and where—the only words that keep being sent back to them are “school action plus”.

Parents do not have enough clout. It does not matter what a tribunal says or whether they win an appeal, because too many local education authorities are still refusing to act. They have no say in budgets, and we have already discussed at length the problems of transition post-16 and post-18. This is not just a nightmare for the children and their families; it is also a really poor use of the education budget. A young boy in my constituency who should now be in his GCSE year has never obtained a secondary school place. A travel grant would have sorted that out, and it would have been peanuts in comparison with the cost of the interventions that will have to be made in that young man’s life further down the road.

My office has done a lot of work on cost. When we were fighting to get children the school places that they needed—we dealt with many cases—we set up a bursary scheme, thanks to the generosity of some local charities and London livery companies. In one case, we paid for the first two years of a young girl’s secondary school education. We worked out that there was an £180 difference between the per-pupil cost of sending her to the mainstream school to which the LEA wanted to send her for the remaining three years of her education and the cost of sending her to the independent school, which was the only school in the area that could cater for her special educational needs. That is a scandal in itself, but we then submitted a freedom of information request which established that the amount that the LEA had spent on the legal fees and officer time involved in the fight against sending the girl to the school to which her parents had wanted to send her outweighed the cost of sending her there in the first place many times over.

I am very pleased about the reforms that the Government are introducing. They address all the points that I have raised, they are long overdue, and I am sure that they will resolve many cases. However, I am still sceptical, and I hope that the Minister will understand why. I am not sure that we shall be able to get all LEAs to act, and to embrace those reforms. We know from our experience with the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in the field of health care that the setting out of a clear vision of what people should have, and a constitution that enshrines what they are entitled to, is no guarantee that they will actually get it.

Perhaps the Minister will say whether he would be interested in looking at some of the cases with which I have been dealing. I think that they are very enlightening. Perhaps he will also say whether, if the education reforms are ignored, he will boot some of the LEAs up the backside when they consistently fail to do the right thing by our children.

Educational Funding Gap

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to have secured this important debate on the educational funding gap for 16 to 18-year-olds with special needs. I well remember, back in 2008—a date that will feature rather less auspiciously later in my remarks—going to Crewe and Nantwich to campaign in the by-election that resulted in the election of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), now the Under-Secretary of State for Education, to this House. It is a great pleasure to congratulate him on achieving ministerial office. I understand that this is the first Adjournment debate to which he has replied, and I am sure that he will want to give me as positive a response as possible to the requests that I intend to make.

I am going to focus on two specific areas. The first is the educational funding gap for 16 to 18-year-olds with special needs. The second, which is indirectly related to that, is the funding of what are known as enrichment courses at further education colleges for people in that age range and for those who are somewhat older. The two issues arise as a result of similar causes. I have forewarned those in the Minister’s office of what I am about to say, and they have seen the material to which I shall refer.

This material has been supplied to me by a splendid organisation called SCARF, which is in the New Forest. SCARF stands for Supporting special Children and their Relatives and Friends. I pay particular tribute to Sarah Newman, Cathy Cook and Pam Tibbles, among others, who were present at a meeting of the organisation with me and my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne). I know that my right hon. Friend would like to join me in participating in the debate tonight, but he is now governed by that particular form of omertà known as the silence of the Whips—or, in present circumstances, perhaps we should say the silence that most Whips generally observe.

I have learned about these problems first hand from SCARF; I have learned of the views of the principal of Totton college in New Forest East via SCARF; and I have learned of the views of the principal of Brockenhurst college, also in New Forest East, directly. I have also been sent briefings by a number of charities, including the National Autistic Society, Ambitious about Autism and the special needs charity Contact a Family.

I want to talk about the parents’ experiences, some of which will be drawn from SCARF’s recent submission to the Education Select Committee, but I shall refer first to one from a constituent who wrote to me recently about the strains and stresses placed on her family as a result of the funding gap to which I have referred. She writes as follows:

“Our son is 16 years old and has autism. He attends college just 3 days a week. We are paying £120 p/w for private day service provision on the other two days. This has been necessary to ease the extremely high levels of anxiety and stress for our son and ourselves as parents and to provide”

her son

“with continuing development of his personal, social and communication skills.”

This mother goes on to make a very important point:

“Adolescence and transition to further education, is a particularly difficult time for a young person with autism or any disability…Our son cannot be left unsupervised to structure and manage his own daily activities, hence the alternative was for myself to give up work and be his ‘buddy’ for those two days each week”

when there is no further education available for him.

“This is far from ideal as, aged 16, he does not want to be constantly shadowed by his mother and also having spent a summer holiday this way, the sheer exhaustion and strain has already resulted in breakdown in family relations. I am extremely concerned about the impact the cuts are having on families with disabled young people. I run a parent support group and am deeply saddened by the despair I see on parents faces”.

That is from the coal face, as it were.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend—and his constituency neighbour—on securing this debate. He could have read from the sort of letter I have received from many of my constituents. Does he not believe that this policy is very short-sighted because the actual cost to the public purse of not enabling these young adults to reach their full potential will be much more in the longer term?

[Dr Lewis]

Absolutely. This is one of those classic cases where we are in danger of falling between two stools. There is education funding up to the age of 16 and then adult social funding from the age of 18, but if something goes terribly wrong in that two-year gap, the cost—in terms of both human suffering and additional support from the state resulting from the fallout of something going wrong at that time—will be colossal. My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

The summary of the position is put forward, as I mentioned earlier, in SCARF’s submission to the Education Select Committee. It describes the overall situation as follows:

“Education funding has been repeatedly cut in recent years”.

Apparently, this started in 2008, but it happened again in 2010 and then in 2011. As a result,

“Further Education colleges can only offer 3 days a week of education to these young people. In addition, Social Services day-care is not available, except in the most extreme cases, until these young people turn 18 and are classed as adults. Consequently, many parents/carers are left to provide the care themselves for their young person on 2 weekdays every week…these young people end up stuck at home with their parent/carer, quickly becoming challenging and disruptive…the end result is a crisis which then requires significant support from health and social services.”

SCARF wants a guarantee that all young people with special needs or disabilities—I believe that LDD is shorthand for “learning difficulties and disabilities”—should have “the right to full-time education for 5 days a week up to at least the age of 18.”

As I said in response to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), I recognise that it may be necessary for more than one department to be involved. It is possible that those in the education department will say “We simply cannot carry the funding burden for the whole of that period.” Given that this used to be primarily the responsibility of the education department, if the education department is going to shuffle off that responsibility, it surely has a duty to find another department—perhaps one connected with social services—that will take the responsibility on.

As SCARF observes in its submission,

“since September 2008, our local FE colleges have had their funding repeatedly cut”.

It gives a number of examples of the way in which that can affect families. I shall not go into them in detail, because time does not allow me to, but one parent says that her son

“absconded without warning one freezing winter afternoon”

and was knocked down by a car, while another talks of the danger of her son’s lighting fires around the home and the fact that he needs active supervision all the time. Some parents have to give up their jobs, while others strain to find the money to pay people to be the buddies or supervisors of their children on those two days off.

There is no doubt that what was previously a relatively seamless five days a week of provision from childhood to adulthood is no longer available. The explanation, as I understand it, is this. Following the introduction of foundation learning qualifications, the basis was changed from generic or broad learning aims to education that would lead to the achievement of specific qualifications. That is fine for people who are not learning-disadvantaged or disabled, but it obviously has a huge negative impact on that category who are. There was also a reduction in what is called “entitlement funding” from 117 hours to only 30 hours a year, and a restriction excluding what are known as “enrichment” activities from the process. Such activities are not designed to lead to the world of work, but are designed simply to give greater quality to the life of a learning-disabled person.

That brings me to my second topic, which is the question of people who are in an older age category but who were previously able to take part in free enrichment courses on one day a week at local further education colleges. Let me give the example—with permission—of my constituent Jessica Snell. She is the daughter of the retired principal of Brockenhurst college. He writes:

“Jessica…is 38 years old and has Down’s syndrome. She lives with her parents and attends a local day centre for 3 days a week. For some time she has attended her local college for one day a week and has gained significantly in her life and social skills. Until 2010 the college was able to draw down funding and remit any fees. This year, she must pay £840 for one day a week for 30 weeks and has no additional income beyond her SDLA”—

severe disability living allowance—

“benefit from which she can pay. Her programme is not work related but she has opted for cooking, drama and craft, all of which add to her independent living skills and enjoyment of life. College also gives her the opportunity to meet and mix with a vibrant community of young people.”

Just as the 16 to 18-year-olds faced a tighter restriction as to whether or not they were going to get qualifications at the end of the process, so the older severe learning-disabled person faces a tighter restriction as to whether or not the course will ever get them into work. If the answer is no in each case, the funding has disappeared, with the consequences I have described.

I began by saying what a pleasure it was to see my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich at the Dispatch Box, and I hope for the far greater pleasure of hearing him say what the Government intend to do to bridge this damaging gap in order to help young people between the ages of 16 and 18 and people like Jessica, who in their adult years cannot hope to enter the world of work, but can still derive much personal satisfaction and advantage from having one day a week at a further education college.

I am sure the Minister will want to tell the House about the Bill on the reform of provision for children and young people with special educational needs, which I believe we will be considering next year. The national special needs charity to which I referred earlier, Contact a Family, has given great support to SCARF’s campaign, and welcomes the draft provisions published last month as far as they go, but it is deeply anxious that they do not guarantee a right to full-time education to those with learning difficulties and disabilities right up to the age of 18. Can the Minister assure us tonight that if his Department is unable single-handedly to fill the gap between these ages, it will work with other Departments so that, between them, we avoid this problem of falling between two stools and we reinstate the situation that used to apply before 2008 and has progressively—or regressively, I should say—deteriorated since then and that we return to the position in which, one way or another, people have five days a week of support between the ages of 16 and 18?

Dyslexia

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Weir. I congratulate the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) on securing this important debate. I have a ten-minute rule Bill, which is barely alive, on special educational needs, with particular focus on dyslexia and pragmatic language disorders. I thank both Front-Bench spokeswomen for allowing me to say a few words. I apologise for being late; I have been in a Committee.

My Bill was motivated by the enormous amount of casework in my constituency. There are very sad cases of extremely large numbers of children who have low to medium educational needs that are not being met by the local authority. I was dealing with about 30 cases, including a young lad with a very mild disability; he has had no assessment yet, so no one really knows what his needs are. He is supposed to be taking his GCSE options next year, but he has never been to a secondary school because a suitable place is not on offer. People do not understand what his issues are and there is no funding for a travel grant, which might open up some options for him. There are large numbers of extreme cases.

My Bill suggests that, common to all the cases I am dealing with, a wider burden of proof for parents to be able to demonstrate that their child has SEN would be extremely helpful. The old statement route catered for people with medium to high need, but did not help to provide leverage for parents whose children had lesser needs. In one case, a young girl with a reading age four years below her age was not considered to be significantly falling behind. If parents have paid for, or got a charity to make, an independent assessment from a qualified assessor, that should be enough to require the local authority to take action.

Teacher training has been mentioned, but training for those in local education authorities is also important. Part of our frustration in getting cases resolved was due to people not understanding what CReSTeD—Council for the Registration of Schools Teaching Dyslexic Pupils—accreditation was, or what the different levels meant for a particular individual. We were not really dealing with educationalists, which was partly due to staffing problems at the local education authority, so I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). Training should be extended to the LEA.

The local education authority should already be required to publish what provision is available in its area, but many do not, yet such a requirement would help parents tremendously. When the LEA has decided that a need will be catered for under school action plus, it should send the parents a quality letter, not simply one that tells them that the need will be covered in school action plus, so they should not worry. They should get detailed information about what that will mean for their child week by week.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her ten-minute rule Bill. I hope that it moves to the next stage and influences Government. She said that she wanted detailed letters from the local authority, which not only say, “Your child is falling behind and has a problem”, but identify the problem. There is sometimes an overlap between dyslexia, dyspraxia, low academic ability and other conditions that can confuse the diagnosis, but the local education authority should be able to define dyslexia when it writes the letters.

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Getting an assessment to start with is a battle for parents, and then they must have confidence in it and in the remedial action that should be taken. Many parents I have been dealing with have not had satisfaction on any of those fronts.

I would be grateful if the Minister could say more about the statutory responsibilities of the Department for Education and the discussions she may have had with the Department of Health. We need to strengthen the tools available to parents and other advocates for these children. My constituents certainly believe that they pay their taxes to ensure that the education system we provide gives every child the education they need to reach their full potential.

One of my final points relates to costs. Where we have not been able to get a school place for some of the children in my constituency, we have actually funded placements for them, and I should like to place on record my thanks to a number of London livery companies and local Rotarians for providing funds to allow that to happen. In just one year, the girl I mentioned at the start, who was four years behind her expected reading age, has caught up. She is a bright girl, and having been given the proper, full-time dyslexia teaching that she needed, she is now doing really well.

An argument that is often thrown back at us is that providing all the top-notch SEN provision that children need costs too much and that the state cannot possibly afford it, but that is a bit of a myth. The placement that we have funded for the child I mentioned cost less than the provision that the local authority would have had to put in place in the school that it chose for her. It is possible to do these things, and they will often save the state money not only initially, but, as has been mentioned, in the long term, given all the problems and issues that people have if they do not get the help that they need.

[Mrs Hodgson]

The hon. Lady is making some important points, and she makes a good point about spending money wisely. Research has been done—I do not have it in front of me, but that is not necessary to make my point—showing that an hour with a specialist dyslexia teacher is worth more than 50 hours with a well-meaning teaching assistant who is not able to give the specific support that a child needs. I might have the ratio wrong, but it is in that realm.

[Penny Mordaunt]

That is absolutely right.

To carry on using the example of the girl I mentioned—I have said this to the Minister before—the problem was not so much that the local authority could not be bothered to find her a suitable place as that the restrictions on how it could use its funding meant that it could not fund some of the obvious solutions. Will the Minister therefore say something about how she might reform the rules governing how local authorities and schools can spend particular pots of money, to ensure that we use that money in the best and most sensible way to meet people’s educational needs, whether they have dyslexia, a pragmatic language disorder or autism? We must ensure that we get every child who needs this provision the help that they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Teather]

To support the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics we are making £3,000 of match funding available to all schools with key stage 1 pupils, for phonics materials and training. I hope that that sort of systematic, structured approach to teaching phonics will help, because we know that it supports pupils’ approach to learning to read, particularly for those who are dyslexic.

I want to make some wider comments about support for teachers and work force development, which goes to the heart of our programme on SEN. It begins with the new standards for qualified teacher status, which include a continued focus on meeting the needs of all children, including those with special educational needs or who are disabled. Similarly, as part of the national scholarship programme for teachers, we have a clear focus on supporting teachers to improve and extend their knowledge and expertise when working with pupils with special educational needs and disability, including specific impairments.

It is anticipated that around 50% of those scholarships will be available to support SEND. We have provided funding for up to 9,000 special educational needs co-ordinators to complete the mandatory higher level SENCO award by the end of 2011-12. The Teaching Schools network, which will allow schools to support each other and drive up the quality of teaching, will help to improve the quality of support for pupils with special educational needs or a disability. Of the first 121 designated schools, 113 have been judged as outstanding for the quality of learning and progress of pupils with special educational needs. The new Teaching Schools initiative has real potential to radically improve the quality of peer-to-peer mentoring and support for teachers in relation to SEN.

[Penny Mordaunt]

On support, one of the other problems that I encountered in Portsmouth was that, where a child had not got a school place and the parents were trying to do their best to teach them at home, they received no support, because if they admitted to the local authority that they were teaching the child at home, they were instantly crossed off the waiting list for a school place. I would be interested to know whether the Minister has any views about how such training and support could be extended to provide parents whose children are at home waiting for a school place with the support and help that they need to ensure that they are not missing out.

[Sarah Teather]

I cannot comment on a specific case, but perhaps if the hon. Lady drops me a note about the matter, I will have a look at it. In the Green Paper, we indicated that local authorities need to provide support to families who are home schooling a child. They are often doing so because they have been unable to get the support that they need in mainstream settings or perhaps because their local special school did not provide them with the support that they wanted.

I want to say something about Achievement for All because it goes to the heart of some of the issues that we have been discussing about the need for someone to look at the child in front of them and have high aspirations, rather than necessarily think about the labels. The Achievement for All programme has been running in around 450 schools for the past two years, and the evaluation has demonstrated some dramatic results. Under the programme, children made greater progress in English and mathematics than other children with SEND across the country, and they also often exceeded the progress of children without SEND, so there has been a really dramatic improvement.

The independent evaluation, which was carried out by the university of Manchester, demonstrated that pupil attendance significantly improved. That picks up some of the other points that we were discussing a moment ago about additional needs sometimes being confused with SEN. Often the issue is just about getting young people to attend school. For children taking part in the Achievement for All programme, there was an average increase in attendance of just over 10%. The evaluation also found significant improvements in behaviour, including less bullying, stronger relationships between schools and parents and a greater awareness and focus on SEND.

Some of the points that the hon. Member for Portsmouth North discussed in relation to her Bill—parental engagement and the need to communicate better with parents—go partly at the heart of this. One of the key facets of the Achievement for All programme is parental engagement and enabling teachers to feel confident about having a conversation with parents about the progress of their child. The Government are investing £14 million to roll out the programme across the country, so that more children can benefit. The programme is being delivered by a newly formed charity, Achievement for All 3As, chaired by Brian Lamb and supported by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Schools can now see for themselves the evidence that the programme works, and we want more schools to come forward and sign up.

The evaluation highlighted some important lessons in how to improve the outcomes for pupils with SEND. Perhaps most crucially, there needs to be strong leadership from the head teacher and senior leadership team, rather than simply relying on a SENCO to provide leadership within a school, although that is important. Achievement for All 3As is currently engaged with 41 local authorities and 598 schools. We hope and estimate that, overall, 1,000 schools will have signed up to the programme by April next year.

I want to turn to some of the specific concerns, particularly on the Joint Council for Qualifications guidance, expressed by hon. Members. I understand that there has been significant concern following recent coverage about apparent changes to the availability of reasonable adjustments for dyslexic pupils. It is, of course, absolutely vital for the fairness of an exam system that reasonable adjustments are made where needed. We have therefore been in touch with the JCQ about the changes, and it maintains that there has been no change to the circumstances in which a student is entitled to extra time for an exam. What has changed is the type of evidence that is acceptable to demonstrate that such extra time is needed.

The most recent edition of the relevant guidance confirms that a school or college must consider and maintain on record the evidence that the student has been assessed as having a below-average standardised score in an assessment of processing, reading or writing speed. I emphasise that the previous guidance similarly required evidence of low standardised scores using assessments of processing speed, reading or writing. I am afraid that we are picking up differences in practice, not differences in the guidance. Such difficulties have always been the basis on which extra time can be awarded to dyslexic pupils, and difficulties in phonological awareness—understanding and decoding the sounds of words and verbal processing—were two of the characteristics of dyslexia identified by Sir Jim Rose.

I understand that Dyslexia Action has written directly to the JCQ to set out its concerns. It is right that the JCQ and Ofqual, as the independent body overseeing the examinations system, should respond to those and determine whether any further clarification of the arrangements is required. I understand that they will be meeting with dyslexia charities and experts in the new year to explore those differences further. Ofqual has assured me that pupils already granted extra time will remain entitled to it on the basis of their existing assessment. I hope that hon. Members will be reassured on that point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Of course I readily concede that something unglamorous can also be very important. I call Penny Mordaunt. [Laughter.] Order. I am delighted that the House is in such a good mood.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

10. What assessment he has made of the benefit to UK business of the investment in low-cost radar satellites announced in the autumn statement.

[Mr Speaker]

I was referring to the item, not to a human being. I call Penny Mordaunt.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Earth observation satellites are critical in helping developing countries manage humanitarian and environmental crises. Does my right hon. Friend see merit in giving such countries British technology or satellite time—provided it is the best for the job, and it usually is—rather than having ring-fenced funding to purchase such services from a third country?

[Mr Willetts]

That is a very interesting idea. It is absolutely right that British satellite technology plays a greater role than is recognised in ensuring that we have information about the sites of disasters. Earlier this year we chaired the disaster monitoring committee, which ensured that satellite images were immediately available after the tsunami in Japan and after disasters elsewhere in the world. There are certainly imaginative ideas through which this role could be enhanced.

School Funding Reform

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Our population has risen for a variety of reasons, and unfortunately the previous Government did not prioritise that in the way they should have done, but I am grateful that the right hon. Member for Leigh is now emphasising that basic need should be our shared first priority.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

I welcome today’s statement, especially the announcement on capital funding, and ask the Secretary of State to keep the very patient King Richard school, and other schools in Portsmouth, at the forefront of his mind as the process develops. I ask him to go further on funding reform to ensure that as well as fairness, we have more flexibility in how we spend per pupil funds in the independent sector, if that is the best provision for the child.

[Michael Gove]

I am in favour of more flexibility overall, but we need to recognise that money spent on state education should stay in state schools. There are many great state schools in Portsmouth, and I was fortunate enough to talk yesterday with the leader of Portsmouth city council, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, and appreciate how hard he is working, along with my hon. Friend, to ensure that Portsmouth gets the support it deserves for its state schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing my attention to that letter; I hope that he will send me a copy. I know that he is a new Member, and that he is passionate about raising standards in his constituency, but the reductions in public spending are a direct consequence of the mistakes that were made by the Government who preceded us. I am afraid that the reply that he should give to that letter should graciously acknowledge that fact.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

Too many special needs children are being denied education because a school place travel grant or a statement has either not been granted or not been honoured. Is it not time, when there is clear evidence of special educational need, that we allow a child’s educational funding to follow them to their school of choice, whether or not they have a statement?

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

The proposals in the Green Paper that we are consulting on aim to make it clearer when a child should have a statement. Schools should therefore be much clearer about what is normally available, and I hope that that will make it easier for parents and schools to understand whether there should be a statement. The new proposals for an education, health and care plan ought to join up funding to make things much simpler for families.