Deaf Children and Young People

Stephen Phillips Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

That is a problem of government, I suppose. I would like to believe that Governments in the end will say, “We need data and if the data show that we are not up to the mark, even if we cannot solve the problem overnight, we will at least embark on a strategy to do something about it.” So it is not a good excuse not to inspect services. I should be interested to hear from the Minister whether the Government would consider giving Ofsted a specific responsibility.

Ofsted did a report on communication last year, looking at three local authorities that had established best practice. That was interesting, but it did not tell us much about the other 149 authorities that it had not studied. So we do not know and we need to know. If there is a recognition that people are going to be scrutinised, that gets the Government off the hook to some extent because it means that the authorities must respond to that scrutiny. Every tier of government that has a responsibility must accept its share of responsibility. I hope the Government will consider that as a practical suggestion.

Communication support is at the heart of what deaf children and their families need. I know that from personal experience. I have very poor sign language. I did go on a course but I found it very difficult. It is a language and I had difficulty keeping up with it. I try where I can. I notice that every time I am in the company of deaf people—which, because of my interest, I very often am—the transformation of that relationship by the sheer appearance of an interpreter is phenomenal. Therefore I understand absolutely why communication support is so valuable. As one blind person said to me, “I would prefer to be blind than deaf because being blind cuts me off from things, but being deaf would cut me off from people and I would find that far worse.” That is what people need to understand—the social isolation resulting from the lack of communication support.

I tabled a private Member’s Bill which notionally has its Second Reading next Friday. It identifies the areas of communication support that the deaf community is looking for, and it identifies the need to ensure that we can develop sign language support for them. The point has been made that many families are paying thousands of pounds of their own money for sign language education—if they can find the teachers—so that they can communicate with their children. I do not believe that that is acceptable.

When I undertook a report for the Council of Europe, I discovered that the policies in Scandinavia meant that interpreters were readily available and that in most Scandinavian countries as soon as a child was diagnosed as deaf, free tuition in sign language was offered to the child and their family. I commend that as a practice that should be available to people in this country.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

The reason that is so important, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, is that any form of communication in early years is critical to the life outcomes of children later in their life. Does he therefore agree that this is something that the Government should be looking at very hard indeed?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

Indeed. The number of deaf children has diminished in recent years and in some ways that is a good thing. We have rubella vaccination and other measures, but deafness will not be eliminated. Congenital deafness or unexplained deafness in newborn children happens, and diseases such as meningitis can lead to deafness in infancy, so there will always be some deaf people in our community and they need to be adequately supported.

Although cochlear implants have made an impressive contribution, they are not a cure. There is evidence now of children who were given cochlear implants 15 years ago not coping brilliantly in the mainstream, as people had hoped. They are still deaf; they just have a very sophisticated hearing aid. We went through a generation assuming that we had solved the problem. We have not. We have made a contribution to alleviating it, which is not the same thing.

I commend the previous Government and the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), who in response to a Prime Minister’s question, found resources within the Department for Education to set up a pilot project called I-Sign which ran in Devon and Merseyside to provide support to deaf parents and children, and led to the creation of more sign language interpreters and a very much stronger support network in those two areas. That pilot was a success and the present Prime Minister has acknowledged that fact, but the scheme has not yet been rolled out nationally. When he responds, I am sure the Minister will report that the Government have taken it forward, which I welcome, but I would love to believe that we will get to a point where that is the national standard.

The step change in sign language that we need could be driven by technical innovations. The Minister responsible for communications in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has been actively engaged with the telecommunications industry to try to develop video relay services. BT and, this week Sky, announced that sign language-using customers wishing to communicate with Sky or with BT can do so using a video relay service. Most deaf people I know who talk about video relay services say, “I don’t want a video relay service to talk to BT. I want a video relay service to talk to my mum, my boss or other people.” That system is established right across America, and it is hugely successful. I hope that we can find a way to achieve that, because it would make a huge contribution to communication. It would also lead to a rapid expansion in the provision of sign language interpreters, because they would have a reliable source of income. I commend the Government for what they have done so far but urge them to come up with a definitive solution that will make the difference.

Our attitudes towards sign language communication and spoken language communication are quite different. The Department for Work and Pensions gave sign language legal recognition, or definition, 10 years ago, which was hailed as a breakthrough, but it is not recognised across government, so that is another challenge for the Government. They recognise Cornish, Welsh and Gaelic, which receive huge resources, yet British sign language, which is an indigenous, created language—indeed, sign language itself was invented in Scotland—is not supported. For some people it is their only language. I know of no Welsh or Gaelic speakers—I do not know that there are any Cornish speakers—who do not also speak English, but there are sign language users who do not communicate in English. We do not support them in the same way we support people who use minority spoken languages. Baroness Howe of Idlicote has tabled an amendment to the Children and Families Bill to try to bring such support forward, so the issue might come back to this House.

I know that the Minister has done some extremely good work and have heard many people in the industry commend him strongly for it. However, like everybody else, he is a cog in a machine that cannot always deliver everything we want as fast as we want it and across the piece. I hope that he will tell us what the Government are doing. I do not expect him to say, “Yes, of course we will adopt all those things,” but we do want champions in the Government who are prepared to drive them forward and who recognise that it is simply not right to leave out a whole section of the community who have real and identifiable needs for which there are practical solutions, not all of which cost a huge amount of money, but which could transform their life attainment. They could also provide economic benefits, because the vast majority of deaf people either cannot get a job or, when they get into the jobs market, get one well below their skills and standards, so they are inevitably a drain on the community. They also suffer a much higher proportion of mental illness. Supporting them will have an economic benefit as well as improving the quality of their lives.

I have spent 30 years campaigning in this House. In many ways I feel frustrated at how little we have achieved. I acknowledge the steps that have been taken, but when I remember what I saw in Finland and Sweden and compare it with what I see in this country, it seems a real shame that the United Kingdom cannot do more to transform the lives of deaf people in our country.

We had been pioneers in this regard. Donaldson’s school in Edinburgh led the way in developing sign language. The ironic twist—this is my final point—is that when Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet came from America to find out how to set up a school to teach deaf children in Boston, the Donaldson’s institute said that it was not prepared to share its teaching mechanism with him. In despair, he found that there was a seminary in Paris teaching deaf children. He ended up taking a squad of teachers from Paris to America, which is why American deaf people use a sign language based on French sign language, rather than British sign language. We invented sign language, but we have not always led the way in innovating and establishing it.

I challenge this Government, and any Government who come after them, to say, “We will no longer leave deaf people behind. We can transform their lives.” The resources are not great and the mechanisms are clearly understood, so let us just do it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the thoughtful contribution of the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). It is always a great pleasure to follow him, not least because he is my MP for four days a week. I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to this important debate, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) on securing it and on all the work he has done throughout his time as chair of the all-party group on deafness.

Earlier this year, I hosted a visit to Westminster by the National Deaf Children’s Society listening bus. Children from the Frank Barnes school for deaf children and others had the opportunity to meet a number of MPs to talk about their experiences of growing up deaf and the difference that extra specialist help has made to them. By all accounts, colleagues who attended were inspired by what they heard. As a former chair of governors at the school, I know that it has been a steadfast supporter of the NDCS’s “Stolen Futures” campaign, which has prompted today’s debate. I still have contact with the school, and I know that the teaching staff passionately believe that we should have high expectations of deaf children’s social, emotional and academic development, and that effective communication, praise, celebration of success, and quality teaching and learning enables children to reach their full potential. We have heard that message from a number of hon. Members today, and it is different from the one that deaf children were receiving some decades ago.

Ofsted has repeatedly identified Frank Barnes school as being outstanding, and I know that the head teacher, Karen Simpson, who is with us in the Gallery today, and her staff work tirelessly to ensure that deaf pupils receive the specialist support they need. We all know that local councils need to target funding at the most vulnerable children who require the most support, including deaf children. Correctly, local authorities have a statutory duty to identify children’s special educational needs and to provide the services to meet them. However, the NDCS’s report reveals that many deaf children—perhaps the majority of them—are not statemented. Not only is that a matter of regret, but it should cause grave concern to Members of this House because it means that the educational potential of those children is simply not being realised in the way it should.

The Government have, of course, taken action. They ensure that local authorities can retain funding for specialist education support services for deaf children as part of the high needs block. However, that does not prevent local authorities from reducing funding overall for those services and, as we now know from the NDCS report, many of them appear either to be doing that or threatening to do it. My own county council in Lincolnshire takes a much more satisfactory line. We are protecting and even increasing funding for services for deaf children, and I have to say that it is very disappointing that other local authorities are not demonstrating the same wisdom.

Any cuts take place in a context in which too many deaf children are already underachieving, as the House has heard, and are simply not getting the support they need. I know that many colleagues will agree with me that the Minister needs to send a strong signal to all local authorities that the money that is intended for special educational needs should be used for those needs.

One solution to the general problem might well be to see what more could be done on a regional basis, particularly given the current economic climate. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that. Deafness is a low-incidence disability and the complex needs of deaf children are not something that many local authorities, particularly smaller authorities, appear able to address on their own. The available research, to which the NDCS has drawn attention, is pretty damning. Many local authorities employ two or fewer visiting teachers of the deaf, and it is impossible to see how such small teams can provide the specialist support needed by all the deaf children and their families in those areas. We are, of course, as the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) mentioned, too often talking about families who cannot or who are not in a position to fight the system. Sometimes they come to us to do it for them, but they are often disadvantaged families and we should be doing everything we can to help their equally disadvantaged children.

I have spoken about Frank Barnes, which is one of the few schools in the country that provides a bilingual approach to teaching where deaf children learn sign language and English together. That is critical, because, as I pointed out in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon, all the research in this area tells us that communication in the early years, however it is achieved, is critical for life outcomes. Schools such as Frank Barnes therefore have an important role to play as centres of excellence and more should perhaps be done both to support them and to use the resources which they offer to other schools in their areas. Specialist schools across the country have the scope to innovate in teaching, but that is too often not the case in mainstream education, where there is so much focus on inclusion—inclusion that can too often, for deaf children, become exclusionary.

For my part, I think the Government could considerably improve provision by encouraging local authorities to work together to commission services on a regional basis and to work with centres of excellence such as Frank Barnes. Some authorities have perhaps already recognised that, but others have yet to do so, presumably because they lack the necessary expertise in dealing with the education of deaf children to realise that it is necessary. I want to hear from the Minister the Government’s views on whether any steps can be taken to encourage the regional commissioning of services for low-incidence special needs, and for deafness in particular.

The House has already heard something about the inspection regime and the recommendations of the NDCS. Teachers of the deaf play an important role in supporting deaf children and their families and I know that the Department for Education recognises that. Many parents, teachers and other professionals—I now add my voice to theirs—are concerned by the anomaly that schools are inspected by Ofsted but education services are not.

We must ask ourselves why, in 2013, a parent of a deaf child at a school such as Frank Barnes can be confident that their child is getting a good education because the school has been inspected, but a parent of a deaf child in a nearby mainstream school cannot? The Government must look at that anomaly and fix it, and I hope to hear from the Minister that the Government are considering requiring Ofsted to inspect all educational services for deaf children.

At the same time, schools also need more guidance on progression trajectories for deaf children and how they differ between mainstream and specialist schools. In the past, special schools for the deaf have requested comparative data reports, similar to reports that were previously produced under the performance and assessment—PANDA—system to support the benchmarking of pupil attainment and other measures. There is currently no way of comparing the performances of SEN schools, as the direct comparison of data has apparently stopped, and that cannot help special schools to make progress.

Ofsted says, as I understand it, that it is unable to provide the data because of the challenges of categorising pupils who are deaf or those with special educational needs, but it fails to suggest how, without reliable data, professionals can assess how well deaf children are doing or how, for that matter, local authorities can properly commission services.

Without proper data on deafness, as on all special needs, local authorities cannot plan ahead and cannot know what they have to commission for the future. The point has, I know, been stressed by the Department for Education in the draft special educational needs code of practice, recently published for consultation, but more can be done. For example, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) said, the school census captures only about two thirds of deaf children, as they are only identified if they have been formally assessed as having a special educational need. I hope that the Department will wish to look into whether that can be improved by looking at what data are required from schools in the census.

Those who know more about these things than I do also tell me that part of the problem with getting accurate data is that even now there are no agreed definitions to help identify which children are deaf. I have to say to the Minister that that is not an acceptable state of affairs. The Government must work, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon said, with professional bodies to agree on suitable definitions to enable data to be collected more effectively.

In the time available, let me come to specialist teaching. I have already noted that the high needs block within the dedicated schools grant for local authorities will include funding for specialist support services, including peripatetic teachers of the deaf, and that is no doubt to be welcomed. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) noted in an intervention, around 80% of teachers of the deaf are now over the age of 50. This is at a time when the number of training departments appears to be reducing. The Minister and the Department therefore need to think now about succession planning for teachers of the deaf, because action must be taken to maintain specialism funding and to give more support for, for example, specialist masters degrees, including funding for schools to provide cover while teachers study.

Let me end by saying that, although there is still much to be done, the future is much rosier than it once looked. Lengthy battles like the one I had to fight to keep Frank Barnes open because the previous Government had formulated the law so that special schools closed, look as though they are now history. Good local authorities, like mine in Lincolnshire, understand much better the issues that surround deaf education and the need to deploy appropriate resources.

This debate and the NDCS report reveal, however, that although things are perhaps rosier, they are simply not perfect. So the Government need to act, and to act now. It is worth doing so not merely because deaf children are children just like any others—entitled to the best education and the best start in life that we can give them—but because the costs to other services in the long term are much reduced by good early intervention that improves life chances. Helping deaf children to learn and communicate makes their lives much easier; it means that they are more likely to find employment; it means that they are less likely to develop mental health problems due to feelings of alienation from a society of which they are, after all, part. The case made by the NDCS in its report, as reflected in the motion before the House, is unanswerable. It is one that I respectfully suggest that the Minister must listen to.