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Special Educational Needs

I congratulate all Members, irrespective of whether they are on the Education and Skills Committee, on securing this debate and on the tone in which it has been conducted. It would be good to begin by talking about the tone of the response, which was mentioned by the Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman). It was not the Department’s intention to put noses out of joint. If he and other Members feel that the response was intemperate, I would be the first to say that that was not our intention and to apologise for it. That is not what we were trying to do, even if there are differences and disagreements within the policy. In the coming moments, I shall try not to wax indignant—the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) suggested that I might do so. I shall also give my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield the opportunity to respond. Unsurprisingly, this has been a passionate and good debate, and many speakers highlighted the difficulties that families may face in obtaining appropriate support for children with special educational needs. It is interesting to see people in this Chamber who have had to go through that process, including the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), who spoke passionately about his own experience. As a constituency MP, which we all are first and foremost, I appreciate how frustrating it can be for families who find themselves in that position. However, it is important to place the real and distressing cases that we deal with in our constituencies in a broader context, and I shall try to do that. It is in the nature of our work as MPs to hear about things going wrong rather than going well. The reality is that the majority of children with SEN have their needs met satisfactorily by their schools. In saying that, I know that we must not be complacent and that there are difficulties that must be dealt with. I shall say a little about that and the path that the Government are taking. Ofsted has reported improvements since we published our long-term SEN strategy, ““Removing Barriers to Achievement””, in 2004. We can see those improvements, for example, in the percentage of children with SEN not achieving at least level 3 in maths at key stage 2, which decreased from 28 per cent. in 2003 to 25 per cent. in 2005. It is important to remember that. Likewise in English, the percentage of children not achieving at least level 3 decreased from 31 to 27 per cent. Those improvements reflect the Government’s increasing investment in provision for children with SEN. Much has been said during the past three hours about investment and the need to invest. I agree with and support that, but it is important to put it on the record that local authorities’ indicative spending on SEN stands at £4.5 billion in 2006-07. Within that £4.5 billion, more resources than ever are going to schools to support earlier intervention; the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) alluded to that. Figures provided by local authorities show that indicative SEN funding in mainstream schools rose by 43 per cent. from £1.3 billion in 2003-04 to £1.8 billion in 2006-07, and school budgets for special schools rose by 23 per cent. from £1.1 billion to £1.3 billion. That is a 43 per cent. increase in three years. Having reached a number of the milestones in ““Removing Barriers to Achievement””, we need to move on, and everyone in the Chamber accepts that this is not a time for complacency and standing still. I shall briefly mention five key areas before returning to some major topics that hon. Members raised. We must raise the awareness and skills of staff in identifying and meeting special educational needs—my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) and others made that point. We must increase access to specialist support; improve accountability for the outcomes that children achieve; improve the quality of support to parents, particularly parent partnerships; and do more to provide advice and support to parents going through the system. I agree that that should be done at arm’s length from the local authority, and we shall try to do that. We must also improve provision for children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties and children with autism. That is a passion of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Jeff Ennis), and I was with him at the launch of the ““Make School Make Sense”” campaign of which he has been a great champion in the House. I turn to some key questions that I have been asked. Do we need a completely fresh look at SEN policy? In the time remaining, I shall not duck that question, but face it head on. The Committee urged us to take a completely fresh look at SEN policy and to overhaul the system of assessments and statements. I understand entirely why the Committee said that, but while we share its desire to improve things, we do not believe that a review is the right way forward at this time, when progress is being made in improving provision for children with SEN. We believe that that would lead to prolonged uncertainty and halt that progress. It is not just the Government who are saying that. When Ofsted gave evidence to the Committee, it advised against a major review and members of the Committee will recall that it said that the danger of a big review at this time is that it would diversify work, resources and developments in such a way that it could send us back to the slow progress prior to 2004.