Children and Families: Early Years Interventions

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is one of those debates in which there has been an incredible amount of agreement. There has been a slight tonal difference, but the agreement has been overwhelming. The right reverend Prelate—I thought of this, so I have to use it—is a prelate who displayed some punch today. She started the whole thing by saying that if you get the basis right, somebody’s life gets a little easier; it is easier for them to have a pleasant experience and for society to benefit. I am paraphrasing, but that is roughly what was said, and everybody has agreed.

The difference becomes clear when you look at what it means. It means start at the beginning: government has to work together. I do not know how many people have spent how many hours, in this Chamber, saying, “Get two departments of government to work together to a commonly agreed goal.” There are many ex-Ministers in this place who have battle scars and tears on their bodies from trying to drag another department to work with them. I have seen it happen. I have seen stress lines appear on a face almost in front of me. We have touched on housing, the DWP, education and health today, all of which have a key part to play here.

The briefing from the Library lists 12 different projects over two pages—and it said it was not in any way an exhaustive list. These are the structures and organisations involved in trying to support people. The number of problems here is mind-blowing, because of the number of things that do not work and create problems. A parent may not have the facility, financially, intellectually or educationally, to deliver this, usually because they did not get support themselves.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester brought in language development. If a child cannot talk properly, there may be many reasons why—for instance, dyspraxia, mental development, language facilities or autism, down to simply not being talked to and stuck in front of a screen or being shouted at and told not to speak. If that is coming through and that person cannot talk, they are stuffed when it comes to dealing with the rest of society. If their capacity to communicate is fundamentally limited, what will they do? How are you to explain that you even have a problem if you cannot talk coherently? You might need help at school but be unable to talk or interact. This can be caused by a variety of things, and it is just one small example of how you cannot get by.

With regard to my own background—I remind the House of my interests, predominantly in special educational needs—dyslexia is not normally easily identified at an early age because it is not really ingrained in education. However, the principle is the same: if you get in early, you will get help. The noble Lords, Lord Astor and Lord Touhig, pointed out that autism is possibly the classic example of early recognition being needed to get the right help. In this area, too, you need to identify early, but if there are lots of people around who for other reasons are not communicating or developing normally, it gets much more difficult.

You have to start developing because if you have a hugely clouded field of vision, with the best will in the world, you cannot deliver the help you want to. How can you do this? What happens normally is that the parent comes in and supports the child, who gets the help. That process involves 12 different bodies, and people try to find their way through. If you have not come from that background yourself, how do you do it? My noble friend Lady Tyler put her finger right on this issue; indeed, I have not forgiven her for taking away the biggest point in my speech. The parents who come from that background are the best equipped to get the best out of the system. That has become accepted practice. We have a series of debates coming up next week that point that out.

How are the Government going to help people to identify the problems just for people with special educational needs? Let us take that group to get them out of the way; if they are dealt with then that clears the field for everyone else. We will do that only if we have very well-trained staff, access to them and support for them, but this is not an area awash with very well-paid jobs. There is SENCO support when you get in early, but do the staff know even when to call in the help? The answer is no, they do not have the training. These characteristics are found throughout the education system later on, but here I feel that they are even more difficult to identify.

You have to get the staff trained well enough to know when to call in help and say, “This is it”, particularly when you have parents who are not equipped to do the heavy lifting themselves. Those are the groups most difficult to reach. The question, “When are you going to come in and do this?” is very important. The rest of the organisations, such as those dealing with autism and dyspraxia, are run by parents who are taking on this job themselves. It is less likely to happen early on, but if it does it is better because you do not have the structure or the experience. Problems that manifest themselves at the beginning are less likely to be spotted. If you want to save yourself money later, start training staff properly. Of course, we know that that does not really work because no one looks beyond their own department and their own budget, so the Government have to co-ordinate. We have to make sure that these people are better trained and that the people who support them are numerous and well-trained enough to intervene. We should start to make a difference in that cohort.

The rest of this is a huge task that society may never get right but it can certainly improve on. Bad housing and bad accommodation, where people are not working together, will add to all these problems. We have to try to become a little clearer about where to apply leadership. I put my bid in there, but others will have other points to make.

The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, commented that we do not need another study or another survey. I quite appreciate what he feels because, many times in various fields that I have been involved in, I have heard people say, “Yes, they’re saying exactly what they said last time. They have said it slightly differently but it is essentially the same thing.” They still do not talk to someone else who may have carried out the same survey somewhere else. If you want to have a moratorium to ask, “What’s the best thing that we have discovered over the last five years?” you might save yourself some money and time and get yourself to a more coherent position.

Lastly, what is the Government’s position on centralising this issue? The briefing suggests that the local authority should do it, but there is no real doubt that local authorities are in no shape to do that. It does not really matter how we got there; it is where we are now. Are the Government going to co-ordinate this? How will they bring the departments together, even if in this field it is just health and education? What are we going to do and what is the timeframe? We have established very clearly that we need central direction and action. We have identified the problem; let us start identifying at least some solutions. Let us see if we can make some progress.