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Speech and Language Difficulties (Education)

So much to say, so little time to say it. This excellent debate was instigated by the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow). Beyond offering him the customary congratulations on securing it, let me genuinely pay tribute to him for his impassioned, informed, highly articulate and fluent presentation of his argument, which, as everyone has said, is the standard to which we have grown accustomed from him. We are grateful to him for introducing a well informed debate. I wish to respond mainly to the hon. Gentleman’s points, but I shall first run through some of those made by other hon. Members. The hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) made a good speech, particularly on the problems of his constituent, Jade Chambers, and wanted me to address the matter of physical restraint. The Department’s guidance states that physical restraint should be used, where necessary, in a way that is reasonable and proportional to the threat or danger posed, and that parents should be informed. We are working on guidance on the use of physical force specified in the Education and Inspections Act 2006, and we need to address training on the matter for teachers and other staff in schools. I anticipate that the basis of the guidance will be much as it is at the moment, whereby parents must be informed. If I need to write to the hon. Gentleman with further details, I shall certainly do so. We were all struck by the information pack mentioned by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett). Naturally, I would be delighted to see it. The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) reiterated my view that local authorities should develop choice. I was married in Basingstoke and have a great affection for it. I used to live there and I hope to return in the new year to visit Queen Mary’s college and one or two other establishments. The hon. Lady talked about the funding for Hampshire. In Dorset, we look jealously at the funding per pupil that Hampshire receives, because it qualifies for additional cost adjustment, which we in Dorset do not. In my constituency, we have excellent special educational needs provision despite the paucity of funding, with an outstanding school for pupils with moderate learning difficulties and a brand new special school for severe learning difficulties pupils that I look forward to opening in the next few months. It is possible to give priority to such things. I shall examine with interest what is going on in the three pyramids about which the hon. Lady is concerned and the matter of the eight-month checks in north Hampshire, and I shall correspond with her. I wish to discuss the points made by the hon. Members for Castle Point (Bob Spink), for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), in response to the main points made by the hon. Member for Buckingham in his excellent speech. First, as is customary, I should mention evidence of the real progress that has been made in helping children with special educational needs and disabilities to achieve their potential. Ofsted, as has been referred to, has reported improvements since we published ““Removing Barriers to Achievement””, our long-term SEN strategy, in 2004. We can see those improvements, for example, in the declining percentage of children with SEN not achieving at least level 3 in maths at key stage 2. It decreased from 28 to 25 per cent. in just the two years from 2003 to 2005. In English, the percentage of children not achieving at least level 3 decreased from 31 to 27 per cent. Those improvements undoubtedly reflect the hard work of dedicated staff and the support that they receive from parents with the passion and impatience that was so well articulated by the hon. Member for Buckingham. Also, they are there thanks to increasing investment by the Government in children with SEN. The hon. Gentleman mentioned only the Government’s inputs, not our outputs, so I have started with the outputs, but the inputs are also great. He will be familiar with, for example, the rise of 43 per cent. from £1.3 billion in 2003-04 to £1.8 billion in 2006-07 in SEN funding for mainstream schools, and the 23 per cent. rise over the same period for special schools. I shall not dwell on that, because we must always do better. The hon. Gentleman rightly put great emphasis on early intervention. When a child is experiencing difficulties, it is of course important that they are identified as soon as possible and that steps are taken to address them. Early identification and intervention are central to our approach to SEN. Children with two years of high-quality early education can boost their overall development by up to six months. For children from disadvantaged backgrounds, pre-school education is particularly important in raising development above the expected minimum in literacy, language and numeracy at key stage 1—in other words, in preparing them for key stage 2. The Childcare Act 2006 places important new duties on local authorities to improve outcomes and reduce inequality for children, which I hope will have an important effect on early intervention. It requires them to secure sufficient child care provision to meet the needs of parents of disabled children who wish to resume or remain in work or undertake educational training. It also requires them to provide information, advice and training to those children’s child care providers. Language plays a central role in supporting children’s attainment later in their lives. The Government are supporting a number of schemes in that respect—for example, the early support programme for very young children with disabilities has improved inter-agency working, planning and delivery across local services by providing information for parents, some of which I have in front of me. One set of information focuses on speech and language difficulties, and explains how children normally develop communication, language and speech; how adults can help; and when and how to seek help from professionals. We have commissioned the communication matters project, and through national strategies we are doing important work. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that great importance is attached to the use of speech and language therapists. All the measures that I have mentioned, and others that I wish to mention, help to ensure that the school work force are equipped to deal with speech, language and communication needs, but for some children direct input from a specialist will be needed. Whenever possible, therapists should agree intervention strategies that can be implemented where children normally learn. They should discuss and agree an approach with teachers so that changes are made to a child’s whole learning experience. When such arrangements are made, children benefit from a rounded programme of support geared to their particular needs. Teachers benefit too: their contact with therapists helps them to have heightened awareness of some of the less obvious problems that children face and thus equips them to nip such problems in the bud. The prime responsibility for the training, supply and deployment of therapists lies with the national health service, but where speech and language therapy is specified as an educational provision in a child’s statement of special educational needs, the local authority is ultimately responsible for securing that provision, even if the local primary care trust cannot or will not provide it. We are aware that some local authorities and schools are increasingly having difficulties in securing such provision from the NHS, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for focusing my mind on the matter. I shall continue to keep an eye on it. Local authorities have to use their own funds to procure private therapy services if they cannot secure them from the NHS. I hope that that is a way to address the problem, which he spoke about so eloquently, of there being unemployed therapists and yet a shortage of therapists in the NHS. We hope also to address it through our joint study work, and I hear the comments about the joint study with the Department of Health. The delay was not down to the research team or the DFES; it arose because of problems in securing ethical approval from PCTs. That was frustrating.