Paulette Hamilton
Main Page: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham Erdington)Department Debates - View all Paulette Hamilton's debates with the Department for Education
(2 days, 20 hours ago)
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Graham Stuart
As usual, the hon. Gentleman hits the nail on the head.
Many across this House will recognise the stories of the schools I have just mentioned, because the same thing is playing out in constituencies across the country. Parents are becoming de facto care co-ordinators; schools are dipping into ever-shrinking budgets to fund specialist provision; and local authorities are caught between legal responsibilities and budgetary reality.
Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham Erdington) (Lab)
I was contacted by a parent in my constituency who was forced to navigate a complex and lengthy tribunal process simply to challenge the decision to place her autistic son in a mainstream school, only to have the hearing cancelled at the last moment, and a place at a special school offered. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that education, health and care plans are not a silver bullet, that we should not need complex legal processes to ensure that young people can access good early support, that support must meet the young person’s needs, and that the money must follow the child or young person?
Graham Stuart
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I was chairing the Education Committee when the coalition Government introduced the reforms that brought in EHCPs as a replacement for statements. I remember thinking then that lots of good improvements were made—there were very sincere Ministers working hard at it, and they brought in a better system—but the fundamentals remained as they were. One of the aims was to get away from an adversarial, legalistic process, in which articulate and typically better-off people were able to use sharp elbows to get their child what they needed, but pity the inarticulate single mother unable to engage with the system. What would she get? The then Government’s promise was to make that better, but the fundamentals remained.
If demand is so much bigger than supply, this is what we will get. With the best will in the world, local authorities will end up being defensive and saying no as a matter of course, and will give way only when they are forced to. Am I going on too long, Madam Deputy Speaker?