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Special Educational Needs

: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Interestingly, the number of new statements made has fallen since 1997. At a time when many of us have seen an increase in need in our constituencies, perhaps involving children on the autistic spectrum, we have seen a decrease in the number of statements, from 35,650 in 1997 to 26,000 in 2004. We need to understand why there are fewer statements when most people's expectation is that the number should have gone up in that time. My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Norfolk demonstrated his interest and expertise in this matter. He was right, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire, to remark on the barriers to taking a local education authority to a tribunal. I am thinking of the cost barriers. There was an account of a parent in Hampshire who spent £2,000 on obtaining reports for a tribunal. That illustrates the adversarial nature of the statementing system, to which I shall return. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) on making his debut speech from the Front Bench. We agreed with much of what he said and I hope that the consensus in the debate so far will continue when the Minister speaks shortly. Many see the process of statementing as adversarial. Parents see the LEA as assessor, funder and provider and see the tension and conflict in that relationship. That undermines in their minds the integrity of and trust in the statementing process. That is why I am delighted to say that, this morning, a commission set up by my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) set out suggestions on how the statementing process could be reformed to take the decision about funding and assessment out of the hands of the LEA by setting up a national body to tackle the issue. That would enable parents to have confidence in the outcome of the statementing process, and LEAs would not feel trapped in the tension between in-county and out-of-county placements, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South referred. This morning's publication by the commission is an important contribution to the debate, particularly on statementing, which I think for many parents causes the most problems. They want a statementing process on which they can rely. LEAs would welcome, I hope, a statementing process that takes some of the conflict out of the system, so that they can focus on the principal task of providing for children's needs. Such a process would also increase the choice available to parents, an issue on which we campaigned at the election. We believe that choice is important for children with special educational needs. It is important that there is a choice of a mainstream school or a special school and that parents can find the right support for their children wherever they live and do not face a postcode lottery in respect of provision. A lot of common sense has been spoken by the participants in this valuable debate. I hope that the Minister recognises that the debate on special educational needs must move on if we are to meet the needs of parents and children, particularly the growing needs in relation to Asperger's and to behaviour, where more support is needed rather than less.