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Education and Inspections Bill

The difficulty, as the hon. Lady will know from her experience in this House and previously, is that in practice a balance is often struck between appropriateness of provision and resources. Sadly, integration, if it is to work well, is often very resource-hungry. I do not want to be too simplistic about this because it depends on the need of the child at any one point in time, but the resource issue that the hon. Lady properly raises is one of the reasons why integration sometimes fails. That will be an ongoing concern and something that Members on both sides of the House will want to scrutinise and raise when appropriate, both nationally and in their own localities. I must make a little more progress, or I will be chided by my own Front Benchers and other Members. [Interruption.] Well, I know that they are enjoying it, but like all good things it must eventually come to an end. The results of last year’s comprehensive survey of schools by The Times Educational Supplement were shocking. It revealed that teachers believe that up to 25,000 children in mainstream schools in England and Wales would be better off in special schools. More recently, the National Union of Teachers has said that inclusion amounts to”” child abuse”” in some cases. It speaks particularly of those children with the most serious conditions who struggled in the confusing regime of secondary schools, where they could be taught by 10 or more teachers a week in different classrooms. Those findings followed a report that the NUT commissioned from Cambridge university. It is certainly true that teachers, head teachers and governors around the country are increasingly alarmed about the effect of inclusion when resources and training do not follow the child. The second problem with the policy that followed Warnock is that many secure, supportive and vastly experienced special schools have closed, as a direct result of the pernicious Warnock effect. Ninety-three schools have closed since the Prime Minister promised that things could only get better in 1997. Before the Minister tells me, as I am sure that he will, that the same number of children with special needs are educated in special schools as always were, which is usually the rejoinder when one talks about special school closures, let me give him the figures. From January 1999 to January 2005, the number of children educated in special schools has declined by more than 85,000. The truth is that many fewer children are being educated in special schools.