Education and Skills Bill

My Lords, I will say a few words about the processes that we have gone through to get here. Having received the Minister’s letter, I appreciate that there is a considerable degree of commitment to carrying this further. Dyslexia was first mentioned in statute in the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. The 1981 Act said that we should do something about it and legal action has been taken on numerous occasions. There have been few Acts since then about which we have not thought that we have got it right. We have said that there should be greater entitlement and that these problems must be addressed. Ministers—whatever colour rosette they wear on election day—have all said, ““Yes, we have done more than before. We have talked to and engaged with more people. We have done so much more than ever before””. But we have never reached a sufficient bite point. Often, that is because of a failure to identify those who should be receiving the help. Also, everyone defends their budgets. How do we say which proportion of the budget should go towards the problem? I recognise the limitations of lists. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said, one term cannot cover everything, but it is appropriate to talk about dyslexia because it was used to cover virtually all the conditions in this list at a time when we understood the process less well. You may be going through the process and not know what is in front of you. You may refuse to recognise dyslexia and say, ““Can we have yet another test or assessment?””. It is always possible to deal with it in that way. You can give someone a little bit of extra help. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, just pointed out, inappropriate help is probably the best way to put somebody off the educational process. That is one problem with the Prison Service. Most prisoners are education self-excluders by the age of 14 at the most. Half the prison population has dyslexia or one of the other conditions in this list. Most of them have problems with acquiring education and therefore acquiring employment. The Minister has an opportunity to say what commitment the Government will give. I hope that the whole House will remember that, when you go through this process, there will always be a series of opt-outs. One is that people will disagree about what dyslexia really is. I remember as a 16 year-old being dragged along to a conference on dyslexia by my mother, where I shifted chairs around. Sulkily, I sat down to listen to part of the conference. I remember a long discussion between two people about what exactly dyslexia was. I then heard somebody criticise them by saying that we had got over the problem 10 years before. The dancing on the head of the pin that can be done in academic circles defies belief. It was first said of economists that, if you laid them all end to end, they would never reach a conclusion. Take three or four more disciplines, stick them together and the possibilities are infinite. There can be great agreement on about 90 per cent of these problems. We must deal with the real problems and, for once, do whatever we can to ensure that initial teacher training contains enough to enable teachers to stand a chance of recognising dyslexia. We cannot be dependent on a Minister’s enthusiasm. In the meeting, the noble Lord, Lord Elton, pointed out with a degree of delicacy that I am afraid I do not possess that Ministers tend to come and go. I remember David Blunkett saying when he was at the Department of Education that he was enthusiastic about dyslexia and something should be done, when he knew that he would be moved after the coming general election. Ministers do not stay for ever. Unless some structure is put in place, all their statements mean nothing. Ministerial enthusiasm will always be there and Ministers will always be moved on in a few years’ time. I hope that the Minister can start to address these points. There is no one simple answer. Unless proper screening is backed up by a long-stop, people will always be missed. The best chance of success is cutting the amount of missed people to a minimum.