SEND Provision and Funding

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Gareth Thomas

Thursday 11th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis), who did a superb job of setting out the strategic argument for more funding for those with special educational needs. I hope that we will get some hint from Ministers that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has heard the calls from parents across the country, and that more revenue funding and, crucially, more capital funding will be made available.

I want to raise a series of parochial issues that are nevertheless relevant to the more strategic arguments advanced by the right hon. Gentleman. Let me say at the outset that I entirely recognise from my own casework the stories of parents and their difficulties in obtaining support for their children with special educational needs. I am sure that is the experience of everyone in this House.

At the outset, I acknowledge the skill and commitment of those who work with and teach children with special educational needs, both in my constituency and across the country. Teachers are remarkable at the best of times but, like other school staff, they are not valued enough. They are fundamental to the future of our country and to the future of the vulnerable young people we are talking about today.

I am fortunate that Harrow is blessed with good special schools. Alexandra School in south Harrow, in my constituency, is particularly good, but Shaftesbury High School, Kingsley High School and Woodlands School are also very effective. I commend their staff to the House. I also acknowledge the impressive performance of special educational needs co-ordinators and other staff who support young people in Harrow’s mainstream school settings.

There is a clear need for a new 300-place special school in Harrow. The four special schools I mentioned face serious financial difficulties, and more investment is needed for the young people in Harrow’s mainstream schools to get the support they need. Harrow has seen a 55% increase in the number of young people with EHCPs over the last five years, and Harrow Council estimates that the figure is likely to increase by about 100 a year. The four special schools in Harrow have just under 500 places between them, but 700 young people a year from my community are being placed in special schools. The council already relies on finding placements for vulnerable children with special educational needs in out-of-borough schools and private special schools that are further away from their family settings.

As I understand it, Harrow already has a much greater reliance on private SEN schools than the national average. There is very little space to expand the borough’s four special schools, and Harrow is unfortunately surrounded by neighbouring boroughs that are also seeing very significant increases in the number of young people with significant special educational needs. Pressure is also rising fast on the private and independent schools catering for those with special educational needs on which Harrow might draw.

That means that a much higher proportion of Harrow’s high needs budget is being spent on significantly more expensive placements than would be spent if an additional special school were built in the borough. As I understand it, my council is now worried that there will be further significant fee increases for those schools, placing even greater pressure on the existing special needs budget.

The Department for Education has turned down Harrow’s application for a special school three times, even though the Department accepts that it was an effective bid and worthy of funding, had funding been available—hence the urgent need for more capital funding.

Finally, I underline the point that special schools in Harrow, and I suspect across the country, are already facing serious financial problems. I understand that the National Network of Specialist Provision has revealed that 80% of special schools responding to its survey reported a budget deficit in year one of their financial cycle, rising to 90% in year two. The average size of that deficit is £145,000 in year one, which has huge implications for school budgets. That needs to be urgently addressed in the forthcoming Budget.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

February Adjournment

Debate between Rosie Winterton and Gareth Thomas

Thursday 13th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti), not least because of his contribution about education and social mobility, which gives me the opportunity to plug the fourth university fair I have organised for my constituents in the London Borough of Harrow. It will take place on Monday 2 March from 3 pm to 6 pm at the excellent Whitmore High School in my constituency. Every student and parent in the borough thinking about university is extremely welcome to attend. All the leading universities will be there. There will also be options for working abroad. I pay tribute to those universities, including the Oxbridge pair, that will be attending the fair and which, as a result of the success of the previous three fairs, have now stationed a member of staff in the school to work with staff to encourage applications to Russell Group universities and to continue the broader job of trying to increase aspiration among students in my constituency. It is extremely welcome.

I want to concentrate my remarks on the national health service in Harrow and north-west London more generally. Health Ministers will be aware of the collapse, after seven years, of the Shaping a Healthier Future programme, which was designed to plan the future of the NHS across the eight clinical commissioning group areas of north-west London. It originally envisaged the closure of four accident and emergency departments, two of which did take place, but then campaigns, led not least by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), led to the successful defeat of the proposals to close his A&E department. That, coupled with Treasury concerns about the financing and population estimates, led last June to the Department of Health and Social Care formally cancelling the programme. On the surface, that was a good thing, because it helped to secure another two A&E departments in north-west London, and, at least for my constituents who rely on the A&E department at Northwick Park Hospital, it means there will not be even more pressure on our hospital.

As yet, however, there has not been any replacement strategy for the future of health services in north-west London, which is a particular concern for the future of Northwick Park Hospital, which has a £140 million backlog of essential maintenance, according to a written parliamentary answer from the Department of Health and Social Care; has been starved of substantial investment of late and is certainly short of intensive therapy unit beds; and has not been able to achieve its four-hour A&E target since August 2014. In that time, my partner has managed to have two children and Brad Pitt got married to and divorced from Angelina Jolie, which gives the House a sense of just how long it has been since the A&E department was able to provide a service that meets the key NHS targets.

That is not to decry the talents and dedication of the staff who work at Northwick Park Hospital. I have had to use the paediatric A&E department facilities many times, and the staff there are amazing—that view is widely shared in my constituency—but there is no clarity about the future of the hospital. That is brought into stark focus by the fact that the trust that runs the hospital is set to have one of the biggest deficits in the NHS. It is projected to be £92 million by the end of this financial year. It must be one of the first times in the history of the NHS that a hospital has approached the end of the financial year with close to a £100 million deficit. It raises the question: what is the future in terms of capital investment and funding for Northwick Park Hospital, given the wider problems in the NHS economy in north-west London? The Ealing, Brent and Harrow CCGs, in particular, are widely expected to have the highest deficits in NHS history by the end of the financial year. There is clearly something significantly wrong with the financing—and the formula on which that financing is based—of the NHS in north-west London. I would be grateful if the Minister conveyed those concerns to the Department and encouraged Ministers to get to grips with the challenges in north-west London, particularly those facing my constituency.

As the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) would testify, the future of walk-in services run by local GPs, including the Pinn, Alexandra Avenue and the Belmont health centre was a significant issue at the general election. I am delighted to hear that the last surviving of those three walk-in services, the Pinn, has been saved, albeit it without any extra funding for the CCG. If true, it is genuinely excellent news.

The other two walk-in services at Alexandra Avenue and Belmont serve a more deprived and more economically challenged community than does the Pinn. It would good to hear that there will be funding for walk-in services to be reopened at Alexandra Avenue and Belmont, because without that I fear the pressure on Northwick Park’s accident and emergency department is only going to increase. As the chief executive of Northwick Park made clear to me, the closure particularly of the Alexandra Avenue walk-in centre was being felt very directly both in paediatric A&E and mainstream A&E services.

I should say that I am grateful to the Minister for Health for agreeing to meet me to discuss some of these concerns, but could the Minister on the Front Bench encourage the Department of Health and Social Care to respond? If he could give him a gentle prod to get me a proper briefing, I would be extremely grateful.

I particularly want to raise Mount Vernon cancer centre’s future. Over 1,000 patients from the London Borough of Harrow use Mount Vernon cancer centre annually. Last July, a clinical advisory panel led by Professor Nick Slevin, who is a consultant clinical oncologist at the Christie Hospital, was commissioned to review the quality of services at Mount Vernon cancer centre and to come up with some suggestions for the way forward. It found that the hospital was so dilapidated and short staffed that it could not provide basic elements of treatment.

I understand that it is probably the first time in the NHS’s 71-year history that such a major facility, specialising in what is clearly the country’s second biggest killer disease, has been deemed to pose a risk to patients and been declared unfit for purpose. It was found to be so dilapidated and short staffed that it could not provide basic elements of treatment. Yet if we talk to those who have benefited or who have had relatives who have benefited from the treatment at Mount Vernon Hospital, we find it is a cancer centre that is held in extremely high regard. Again, it is blessed with some remarkably talented doctors and nurses, who have done a tremendous job over the years in saving numerous lives and making a huge difference.

Again, the question is: what is the future of the Mount Vernon cancer centre? Initially, there was a lot of concern, particularly with University College London Hospitals due to take over the running of the cancer centre, that cancer services would move from that site into central London. That does not now appear to be the likely ultimate plan for the cancer centre, but there is no clarity as yet about the cancer centre’s future. It is clear from the review that it does not think, fundamentally, that the cancer centre can continue at the Mount Vernon site. That is creating a lot of concern among those currently undergoing treatment there or those who have benefited from treatment on the site.

Having been operated on at the Mount Vernon site in the dim and distant past when it was an acute hospital, I know the affection in which the hospital is held. As a matter of urgency, I urge NHS England to make sure there is no gap in the attention given to the future of Mount Vernon hospital. It sits in an uneasy place in terms of NHS boundaries, being very close to the boundary that NHS East of England manages, but just within the NHS London region. When UCLH takes over running the facilities on the site next year, apparently in March 2021, NHS East of England will pass over responsibility for working out its long-term future to NHS London. There has to be a concern that there will be some loss of focus on the future of the hospital.

Again, I urge the Minister to brief his colleague the Minister for Health on the concerns about Mount Vernon cancer centre. If it helps to encourage the Minister to take this seriously, Mount Vernon cancer centre serves the constituents of the Prime Minister as well as mine, and I suggest there will be many constituents in Uxbridge and South Ruislip who are very worried about the future of the cancer hospital. On that basis, I look forward to the Minister passing on my concerns.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

It is a pleasure to call Luke Evans to make his maiden speech.