Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 49: 49: After Clause 10, insert the following new Clause— ““Provision of communication aids for looked after children in the review of their care plan In section 26 of the 1989 Act (review of cases and inquiries into representations) in subsection (2) after paragraph (d) insert— ““(dd) requiring the authority, when seeking the views of the child, to make such arrangements as it considers necessary for the provision of alternative and augmentative communication support, communication aids and speech and language support services to a child with a communication impairment;””.”” The noble Baroness said: I will also speak to Amendment No. 50, with which Amendment No. 49 is grouped. Both amendments are about alternative and augmentative communication support. Amendment No. 49 would provide for communication aids to be made available to looked-after children in the review of their care plan, when the local authority has a duty to seek their views. Amendment No. 50 is about communication aids and speech and language support for those children in a situation where decisions are being made about them. All children have a right to communicate their views, but what if the child cannot speak clearly or even at all? The local authority has a duty to seek their views but it cannot fulfil that duty properly unless some help is provided. It is important that children should have access to essential communication aids; it should be a basic right for young disabled children who are looked after. Without these aids, it is not possible for the local authority to carry out its duty to seek children’s views. As with advocacy, IROs and visitors will not be effective unless disabled children have a right to the aids and equipment that they need to communicate their wishes and feelings. In December 2006, the Children’s Society found that more than 40 per cent of those surveyed said that they could not provide advocacy for children who did not communicate verbally, and more than a third said that they could not provide advocacy for autistic children. This provision is not expensive, apart from the high-tech equipment required for those individuals at the very top end of the range of needing help, which could cost up to £5,800. However, there is a wide range of difficulties. For example, sign-supported speech does not involve any equipment costs at all, although it has training implications and so on. There are also costs involved with insurance and ongoing support. Scope has estimated that around 15,000 people have the highest communication support needs in the UK. Not all those are looked-after children, but quite a lot of looked-after children have these problems—Scope’s estimate is that the figure is about 7.5 per cent. Meeting those needs currently accounts for 4.4 per cent of the budget. I am not sure where those figures come from, but there are young people who are not able clearly to communicate their views simply because of the lack of a small or maybe a larger kind of support with their communication. Provision of these communication aids is important for their basic rights and to enable the local authority to carry out its duty. I beg to move.