Education Bill

My Lords, I support Amendment 35 and Amendments 48 to 52 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Low. Children who have been permanently excluded are less likely to achieve five good GCSE results or to be in employment in later life. There is a long-established link between being excluded from school and being involved in crime. Research from the prisons inspector in 2004 found that 83 per cent of young men in custody had previously been excluded from school. There is a clear consensus that exclusion from school results in dramatically poorer outcomes for the child concerned and has significant long-term costs to society. Exclusion disproportionately affects disabled children and children with special educational needs, further compounding the disadvantages that they face. The Bill’s equality impact assessment itself recognises that pupils with SEN account for 72 per cent of all exclusions. Disabled children and children with SEN continue to be over eight times more likely to be permanently excluded from school than the rest of the school population, a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, when she gave us his speech. Children placed in School Action Plus who have significant needs but who are without the statutory support of a statement for special educational needs are over 20 times more likely to be excluded. The Special Educational Consortium, which provided a brief for today, recognises that the Government are seeking to ensure that children with SEN are not disadvantaged by the new system. However, I share its concern that the Government have not gone far enough to mitigate the potentially negative impact that the proposals would have on children with SEN. The consortium tells me that it is often the unmet learning needs, including unmet special educational needs, that are at the root of the persistent behavioural difficulties that these young people become involved in. In Committee in the other place, the Minister for Schools said, "““Incidents which prompt multiple exclusions will often be an indication that a pupil has underlying difficulties that may not have been correctly identified””." This recognition is most welcome; I think that we would all welcome it. The Minister went on to say that the Government, "““will recommend in exclusion guidance that children are assessed through an effective multi-agency assessment for any underlying causal factors. We will suggest that schools trigger this assessment in instances in which a pupil displays poor behaviour that does not improve despite effective behaviour management by the school””.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/3/11; col. 378.]" On Report in the other place, the Minister said that it was the Government’s intention to ensure that those assessments actually take place. The Special Educational Consortium rightly has serious concerns that those assessments will not happen if there is only a recommendation and they are not included in the statutory guidance. All my experience, both in the other place as a Back-Bencher and a Minister and, as I said in the earlier debate, as a councillor for 20 years, shows me that that would be the case. Exclusion guidance is already clear about the need to look at underlying causes of behavioural difficulties, yet this has not reduced the number of children with special educational needs who are routinely and regularly excluded from school. The current guidance is also explicit that schools should exclude children with statements only in the most exceptional circumstances. However, children with statements—in a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley—are still eight times more likely to be excluded than their peers. Hence, Amendment 35 would require that: "““Regulations must make provision that if a pupil has been excluded from school for a fixed period on two or more occasions in a 12 month period or is at risk of permanent exclusion then a head teacher shall ensure that—(a) there is an assessment of whether that child has unidentified learning needs (b) there is a review of the effectiveness of the special educational provision being made if that pupil has identified special educational needs; (c) there is a review of the effectiveness of the reasonable adjustments being made if that pupil has disability””." The purpose of this amendment is to make it a requirement in the regulations to assess children at risk of exclusion. That is necessary because the proposals as they stand would make no difference to the number of children with special educational needs who face exclusion from school. The amendment would ensure that the school has a legal duty to undertake an assessment. Amendment 48 would make it clear on the face of the Bill that any parent can request an SEN expert, even when the child does not have an identified SEN issue but the parent believes that there may be an underlying factor in the exclusion. Amendment 49 would provide that parents must be properly informed of, "““their right to request an SEN expert””," to assess their child. Amendment 50 would ensure that all SEN experts are suitably qualified and there are consistent standards across the country. That has been a big problem with many of these measures in the past. Amendment 51 would ensure that the SEN expert is able, "““to review the needs of the child and whether the school puts the correct support in place””," and Amendment 52 supports the Special Educational Consortium's belief that the final choice of an SEN expert must be left to the parents if they are to have confidence in the system. These are reasonable and sensible measures and I hope that when the Minister comes to respond he will think that they are a good idea and wonder why the Government did not think of them first.