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Special Educational Needs

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Not only are such fights taken on only by parents who can fight and keep going, but the process costs a lot of money, which precludes many parents from achieving what they want for their children. He highlights the fact that whatever system we have for statementing, we need more educational psychologists, not fewer. The issue of pre-school education is important to me. When the Childcare Act 2006 was being considered, I was concerned that there would not be enough funding in local authority pots to provide special pre-school education for children with special needs. It is great that that is to be provided, but it is foolish to pretend that it will be cheap to provide and will come just under the grant for free entitlement. It will not. We all know that that early pre-school intervention is very important. In the recent report ““The Cost to the Nation of Children’s Poor Communication””, I Can comments:"““With substantial numbers of children starting school with either persistent and transient communication difficulties, the need for a workforce skilled in supporting their development is crucial, both at pre-school and school phases of education.””" Speech therapists and other support training for communication skills are, as the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) said, absolutely crucial, because children cannot progress until those obstacles are overcome. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that primary care trusts and local authorities are equipped to employ adequate numbers of speech and language therapists? There has been much debate about inclusion and mainstream education, and I am glad that the consensus is that this is not a question of special school education versus inclusion. Everyone has come to the centre and agrees that we have to find what is right for individual children. That is important. It is worrying that Government policy is not clear. When I was chairman of education for Poole unitary authority, the pressure was to include more and more children. There is no doubt that there was pressure. Even Government documents appear to suggest that the number of children in special schools will fall, but I understand that the ministerial evidence to the Committee was that the Government agenda is not to reduce numbers in special schools. Some clarity is therefore needed from the Minister today. I believe in inclusion for many children, but that has to be resourced. It has been seen as a cheap option and used as one for local authorities that are hard-pressed for funds, but that cannot be. There has to be adequate support, especially for teachers. It is hard for teachers, and for other pupils in a class, when a child with extreme behavioural difficulties has to be dealt with. We must accept that, because teachers are leaving, a large number of whom have completed only about five years of teaching. The pressures in the classroom come from that. So, an awful lot needs to be done, and we need clarification from the Government. I agree with hon. Members about the spectrum of support and on the point about collaboration and autonomy, about which we have heard a lot. How will collaboration be promoted? That is difficult. Like the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Benyon), I have had representations from the non-maintained sector. I received a letter from Langside school in my constituency, which is run by Scope. The head teacher expressed disappointment with the Government response to the report, and said that despite continuing to promote a continuing role for special schools, they do nothing to make that a reality. The head went on to say that pressure on local authority and health funding means that our schools are frequently considered only as a last resort, after a child has been through and failed in every local authority service. Why should a good school be a last resort? That is why we need independence in the statementing process. Much has been said about choice and admissions. I am not convinced by the Government’s response on whether academies are accepting children with special needs when they should be. That is a poor section of the document. Should there be a major review of special educational needs? I think there should be. The Government are totally wrong and it has been a long time since the last, big change of direction—25 years. We may have had legislation and a 10-year strategy, but much has changed. Evolution and modification are taking place, but we must consider the complexities of special needs today and the fact that we now listen more to parents and children. There has been so much change that a review is needed, and the statement in the Government response suggesting that that would mean that everything had to stop is ridiculous and nonsensical. We should have an open debate about how much we as a society are prepared to spend on our children with special needs.