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Children’s Plan

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I regret the fact that we do not have the original Spice Girl on our Benches but I bet you we have a Scary, a Posh and—what are the other ones? We certainly have a Sporty. In this House we do less political grandstanding and more scrutiny and I intend to focus very carefully on the Statement and ask quite a lot of questions. If I ask for further clarification that does not mean that we do not welcome every single extra pound, or particularly every million pounds that the Government are going to spend on children, and the additional focus and outside expertise that the Government are bringing in to inform their policy-making. That we all welcome. In general, though, top-down policies will not work and so some of my questions will be to find out how much is being decided locally and how much is being determined by the Government from Whitehall. I agree with the Minister that the early years are critical. We welcome that the Government are providing enough money for at least two graduates in nurseries in the most disadvantaged areas but will the Minister confirm that the Government will not specify how many graduates will have to be provided? That should be for local decision-making. I also welcome the extra nursery places for another 20,000 two year-olds but, as my honourable friend David Laws in another place said, one must put that in the context of there being 650,000 children in that age group. How is this going to be done? A two year-old is very close to its parent and should be. The Government run the risk of being called a nanny state if nursery provision says, ““We are going to take your children away from you at the age of two. We know better how to do it””. Perhaps the Minister could say a little more about how the parents of two year-olds will be involved in helping children to develop with expert advice. I, too, question the need for another root and branch review of the primary curriculum and wonder what the Minister envisages being taken out in order to allow more space for teaching the basics. Children already spend over 50 per cent of their time on English and maths. I welcome the concentration on personal and social education but I have some concerns about the evaluation of the SEAL programme and whether the teachers doing that evaluation are actually best equipped to do it. Does the Minister agree that before reading, the child must develop adequate listening and speaking skills? Parents play a crucial role in language development so can we not include that as a priority for all health visitors and in all government-sponsored parenting programmes? I agree with the Minister that partnership and multidisciplinary working are crucial to early identification and intervention, but the training stage of all professionals is the most appropriate time for the Government to intervene. Ministers should ensure that professionals who work with children are trained to understand other professionals’ areas and how and when to bring them into play to work with them, and not take over the decisions that those professionals should be taking themselves. What are the Government doing about this? Speech and language fall between health and education, and although it is great to hear that the Minister is working with his counterpart in health, what in the plan will support the estimated 1.2 million children who have a communication disability, particularly the 50 per cent of children in some parts of the UK who are arriving at primary school without the speech and language skills required to learn? This involves people working together. That is why I welcome what the Minister said about the Building Schools for the Future programme, as it is quite certain from my visits to certain special schools that the collocation of professionals really helps them in multidisciplinary working. I certainly welcome the £18 million that the Minister has announced for initial teacher training in special educational needs, but what about continuous professional development for existing staff? Most members of the teaching workface are already in work. Will the Minister say what will be done about them? The review into special educational needs provision, which the Minister mentioned, will undoubtedly discover that there are major unmet needs. Will he commit to funding for the needs that are discovered? I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, about the problem with CAMHS. The Minister said that the Government will investigate how they can work better with schools to identify where early support is most needed, but does he not recognise that quantity and quality also need to be considered to fulfil the need for CAMHS treatment? Can he give us a little more detail about the Children’s Trust arrangements that he envisaged, which may need to be strengthened through legislation? On the powers to tackle bad behaviour, will the Minister confirm that the Government will concentrate on the positive activities in Sir Alan Steer’s report and not concentrate simply on the punitive in relation to children’s behaviour? Lastly, the Minister mentioned £167 million for new parenting advisers in every local authority area. Will these advisers be health visitors? The Minister will know very well that I am a great fan of health visitors, particularly because they are a universal service and carry no stigma. Can he tell the House how they will be involved in this programme?