School Attendance
Debate between Robert Halfon and Derek Twigg(11 months ago)
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Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; I think he has time. Will he address the problem that I mentioned at the end of my speech, which was about the liaison between local education authorities and the Department of Health and Social Care, and mental health trusts in particular? In Gloucestershire, the waiting lists for children with mental health problems are extremely long. We really need to do better by our young people.
Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
I am sure the Minister is aware that he should leave a minute or two for the right hon. Member for Chelmsford to wind up.
Robert Halfon
Yes. I will finish in a couple of minutes. The “health” part of an education, health and care plan is fundamental. I absolutely agree that co-operation work needs to go on, and a lot of work is going on to ensure that the H part of an EHC plan does exactly as he describes.
The legacy of the pandemic means that absence levels are still too high. Improvements have been made, but there is a lot of work to do. Too many children are missing out on the opportunities that regular school attendance provides, but I reassure pupils, parents, teachers, local authorities, and health and other partners that we remain committed to working with them to tackle the issues through our “support first” approach, building on the strengths of the current system and the success that we achieved together prior to the pandemic.
Being in school has never been more valuable, with standards continuing to rise. I thank our brilliant teachers, heads and everyone who has worked with us—in Essex, in Chelmsford, in my own constituency of Harlow, in the Cotswolds, in Durham, in the Isle of Wight and in the other constituencies across the country—because the teachers and support staff are the people responsible who are doing so much to make sure that we make progress on this very difficult issue.