Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 164: Page 30, line 2, at end insert- ““( ) The authority shall ensure the parents of a child for whom a statement is maintained under section 324 of Education Act 1996 are given sufficient advice under subsection (1A) about the possible options open to them, including provision in both mainstream and special schools.”” The noble Baroness said: I rise to speak to a number of amendments on children with special educational needs—Amendments Nos. 164, 254 and 255. This cluster of amendments drives straight to the heart of an issue that is close to many of our hearts. We have already debated the broad implications of special needs education. Indeed, we have also touched on the policy of inclusion that seems to have been adopted across the country, whether deliberately or not, but I wish to return to it briefly now as the real on-the-ground effectiveness of special educational needs provision is in serious need of review. I was saddened but not surprised to read that SEN children are nine times more likely to be excluded than children without statements. The Committee will agree that that is not due to the inherent bad behaviour of children with SEN, rather it is largely due to the lack of provision being made for those children. Across the country there are some truly fantastic schools doing a wonderful job, but there is no way that we can claim that children with special educational needs are being provided for with any consistency. There are two major problems: first, the complete lack of clarity on inclusion; and, secondly, the statementing process. Inclusion poses one of the great educational quandaries of this century. The number of children with SEN rises year on year. This situation will not disappear. School admissions policies are being confused due to the provisions of the SEND Act 2001. Under that Act, school governors and teachers, "““may be at risk of prosecution if they refuse a school place to children with special educational needs, even if the school does not have sufficient resources to provide an appropriate curriculum””," according to the Cambridge University paper, The Cost of Inclusion. There is a clear confusion here between existing legislation and the government policy outlined by the Minister the week before last, where we learnt that the Government have a child-centred policy on SEN. LEAs across the country are under the impression that they are under a duty to enact inclusion in a structural sense by pushing children into the mainstream. Those authorities could be said to have mistaken the concept of inclusion for a structural duty rather than the substantive principle that I take it to mean. For by inclusion we must mean the real day to day inclusion of a child in everything occurring at the school. We cannot mean the mere physical inclusion of a child in the classroom. There is far more in question and far more to the equation than that. Amendment No. 164 would ensure that parents are given the appropriate advice about all SEN options open to them. It would provide an interim measure for parents in a thoroughly confusing system. The next consideration must be for the effective inclusion of those children without special needs. Amendment No. 254 makes no assumption about where a child should go. It does, however, state clearly that children without a statement should ordinarily be placed in a mainstream school. I emphasise that this amendment is tabled in a constructive spirit. We on these Benches, and in the Conservative Party as a whole, have been thinking very seriously about the SEN issue. We have a special needs commission looking into potential solutions for improving statementing, and for somehow separating the allocation of statements from the allocation of resources without having to give any one body unfettered powers to make financial grants. Subsection (3) of the amendment states—along the lines of my party’s SEN interim report published on 29 November last year—that a national funding agency would allocate funds to statemented children on one of a spectrum of categories. A statementing system should not vary from local authority to local authority. Subsections (4) and (5) take into account the wishes of the parent, and subsection (6) confirms the involvement in SEN provision of CTCs and academies. Amendment No. 255 would replace a provision left removed by this Government from the 1996 Act for reasons that have never been clear to me. This is not a statement of policy; I merely hope that the Minister will take an active part in this debate and perhaps give us an idea of the Government’s plans for SEN in the next few years. There is clearly much more work to be done. Today I hope to achieve not a statement of a new policy on SEN but a commitment from the Minister to reconsider the problem of SEN. This is a complex issue about which we are thinking hard. I leave the Committee with the following thoughts. The Priory Education Services representation to the Education and Skills Select Committee of 21 June had a pragmatic and commendable approach to SEN students. It says: "““It is not enough for us to describe ourselves as ‘good’ and excuse the lack of measurable outcomes because ‘our students do not have the ability to pass exams or achieve other externally verified results’. We must live in the real world, where education standards do matter and will influence the young person’s subsequent life and achievements””." That is right. These children must be given the chance to flourish, to participate in and contribute to the real world. I beg to move.