Children and Families Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I support the Bill and particularly the core phrase of “support and aspirations” which Sarah Teather MP used to launch the Green Paper when she was the Minister, and which I think runs right through the heart of the Bill. I absolutely accept the previous two speakers’ point about local government’s concerns about funding this, but we have to start somewhere. There is no doubt that “support and aspirations” for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities are due for reform. The much stronger links in the Green Paper between education, health and social care are critical if we are to move to a truly child-centred approach for those with SEND.

Something has, however, slipped between the Green Paper and the publication of the Bill, although there has, correspondingly, been some remedy of this during the Bill’s passage through another place. The links between health and education are somewhat weaker. In particular, I am concerned about the 25% of children and young people with disabilities or physical illnesses who fall outside the scope of the Bill because they are deemed not to have SEN. However, their education is often harder to access because of their disability.

I am reminded of a student at Impington Village College, where I was a governor for 10 years, who had cystic fibrosis. At the heart of the school is a strong medical and support unit called the Pavilion, which has full physiotherapy, occupational therapy, a nurse on hand and other medical support. Having this in the middle of a mainstream school meant that she was able to access a normal education. She was a very bright young lady. Yet, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Warnock and Lady Howe, have pointed out, schools which do not have this system at their heart would have been reluctant to take her with the thought of her having to do physiotherapy twice during the school day in order to make it possible for her to study. I really think that the Bill will move things forward for many children with severe medical problems like this.

For those children who need social care as part of their education, health and care plan, the Bill only outlines the administrative need. It is not enforceable, as other noble Lords have said. Social care is critical to youngsters with serious disabilities. Without it, they too cannot necessarily access their education fully. This week is junior rheumatoid arthritis week. There are children as young as seven or eight who wear splints and use wheelchairs, although it is not a disease you normally associate with the young. They still need that support if they are going to have education in their local school, which has much to commend it. I hope that the Minister will be able to address this quite specific point about a duty of enforceability during the passage of the Bill.

I am also concerned that the SEND tribunals can hear appeals only on the education element. Surely an education, health and care plan is one unit. Surely the principle behind the Bill is to reduce the silo thinking and behaviour. I absolutely cannot understand why a SEND tribunal should not be able to draw in the health and care plan elements.

If we are serious about the age of 25 as being the key date for those with SEN, it is vital that EHC plans can continue into university and beyond. I just do not understand why employers are included—which is wonderful—but not universities. While we are talking about universities, I was astonished to read today a survey from the Snowdon Trust that SEN support is significantly reduced for graduate students. So you can have a certain amount of support for three years of your undergraduate course and, merely because you are bright enough to continue on to be a postgraduate, your support is significantly reduced—often to 10% of what it was before. If we believe that this provision is to cover young people up to 25, this must be addressed.

Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear me say that there is one group of children whose needs are excluded from SEN and that it is an area that really does need to be addressed. These are children who are so severely bullied that they fear for their safety—and worse, some take their own lives. Their downward spiral is often characterised by their refusing to go to school; the number is estimated at 16,000 a year. I am afraid to say that some schools do not help these children in finding them alternative provision until the bullying is stopped and their confidence built up. Providers such as Red Balloon Learner Centres get 95% of their students back into mainstream education. It is time that these children were able to access temporary special needs support, and I will bring forward amendments at the Committee stage of the Bill.

However, more than that is needed. At present, the regulations and codes of practice for schools dealing with bullies are in a number of places, and I believe that they should be brought together in one clear government statement, in legislation, support documents and codes of practice, so that all schools and colleges are in no doubt about the Government’s strong statements against bullying and how this needs to be dealt with. We also need to have training for teachers, social workers and, frankly, children to start to change the culture. Anti-Bullying Pro, a charity that has worked with Jodie Marsh and Alex Holmes, has done amazing work in over 600 schools to develop anti-bullying ambassadors, but there are thousands more schools still to go. Shy Keenan, whose son Ayden tragically took his own life in March this year, is fighting for Ayden’s Law in a strong campaign at the Sun newspaper to provide protection, training and support to ensure that not one more child has to die. I believe that the special educational needs element of that campaign could well be served by inclusion within this Bill.

I want to focus for the last part of my speech on shared parental responsibility. One problem that many young women face is an employer trying to decide whether or not they might be likely to have a child, and whether that will cause problems for the organisation, even though they know perfectly well that to declare this would be discriminatory. But there is another problem, too. We have focused too much on the mother as being the only parent who can provide parental support in a child’s early years. It is time that parents were able to share between themselves parental leave in those early vital months; by doing this, the problems that I have outlined above of invisible discrimination against women should reduce. An employer will no longer be able to assume that a woman will take her entire parental leave. The same is also true of statutory shared parental pay. I am mindful of the comments, too, of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, on the role of grandparents in this as well. I would welcome that, although it may be a step too far for this Bill—but I think that we at least ought to start the debate.

The other elements of Parts 6, 7 and 8 are also essential to provide the right support for employees, with, of course, due notice for employers. Flexible working, as outlined eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry of Southwark, is absolutely long overdue. The measures in this Bill are mature and ones that responsible employers will welcome; investing in their staff will encourage them to stay, and make them more productive. These are very much Liberal Democrat reforms, championed by Nick Clegg, and Jo Swinson, the Business Minister, but resoundingly endorsed by the party. It will produce a more motivated and productive workforce, and employers will be able to recruit and retain staff from a wider pool of talent. It will also have the benefit of increasing the diversity of the workforce—no bad thing—and, I believe, support more sustainable growth within our economy.

There are many elements of this Bill that I have not been able to touch on, but I am looking forward to the next stage, when we will be able to look in more detail at the proposals in this excellent Bill.