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Special Educational Needs

: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for not only making a flattering remark but anticipating precisely the point that I was coming to. If people such as ourselves have a child who has special needs, we have the motivation and, probably, the financial muscle to take the case to a tribunal, but the vast majority of parents are not in that position. Dozens of parents have come to me in absolute despair because the statement that they have secured from the LEA is not delivering. Their only way out of the quagmire is to plead with officials or go to county councillors or MPs, or to take the case to tribunal. Very often, the latter course of action is completely beyond their financial resources. The Minister should consider funding for parents to take cases to tribunals because, as far as I am aware, no legal aid is available. Perhaps it should be possible in extreme circumstances for legal aid to be granted to parents. That would be for the Department for Constitutional Affairs to examine in some detail. I would like the Minister to comment on that matter when she winds up the debate. It is not even the end of the process when a tribunal award or recommendation is made, because what it recommends must be implemented by the LEA. Some LEAs are very proactive, sympathetic and professional at implementing a tribunal's recommendations and judgment, but others put every possible obstacle in the way of implementation. Parents in my constituency have come to me saying, ““Well, this is what the tribunal said but the LEA is not acting on it.”” Far from acting on it, in some cases the LEA is extremely difficult, and obstructs the parents. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South, who drew on his substantial and wide experience as a county councillor, talked about funding, a matter also raised by the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins), who made a very fair and balanced contribution to the debate. Funding is at the root of the dilemma, because every LEA will look at its budget and at what a tribunal may recommend and ask how it can afford the extra revision, time and support that the tribunal may insist on. LEAs know that the only way that they can afford that is by taking money from other services in education. I think that the hon. Member for Luton, North suggested ring-fenced funding for special needs provision, which the Minister should consider carefully, proactively and with imagination. Drawing on my experience of the many constituents who have come to my surgery over the years, I believe that the problem will not go away until there is some ring-fenced funding for the LEA to make a commitment to parents and families that special needs assistance will flow to the child and follow them to give them the help that they require. I am very concerned about the closure of special schools. If those schools close, the present situation will get worse and worse. There are two excellent special schools in my constituency: the Alderman Jackson school, which caters for children with very severe physical and mental difficulties, and the Ethel Tipple school, which caters for children with mild and slightly more serious autistic and learning difficulties who may go into mainstream schools or who may have come from them. If the Minister visits the Ethel Tipple school, she will see for herself that many of the children will have a chance to go into mainstream education, as many of the parents, and the school, hope that they will. However, some will not; there is a pattern that some children start off in mainstream primary schools, find that they cannot cope in a secondary school and then go across to the Ethel Tipple school where they are given a lot of extra help. The school caters for their special needs in a caring, imaginative environment. If those children stayed in mainstream education they would become disruptive, lose concentration and damage the progress of the whole school. That is why special schools are needed so badly. I hope that the two schools in my constituency will stay open, but throughout the country more and more of those schools are closing. I am in the same position as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire: I am not in any way against mainstream education, but some children cannot cope in mainstream schools. That is the point. The Minister must respond to the criticism levelled at the Government: why does the White Paper not address the problem relating to the future of special schools? It contains little about special needs education or the Government's policy towards special schools. Why are they closing? What will happen to the children who are then put in mainstream schools? What will happen to children who do not have statements or whose parents cannot take them to tribunals? What will happen to those many children in mainstream classes who will suffer the disruption and all the associated problems that flow from a lack of understanding of a small minority of pupils' special needs? I hope that the Minister will be able to answer those questions. Once again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire on instigating this important debate, which I hope will be the start of some real progress by the Government. I have to say, however, that I am not holding my breath.