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Special Educational Needs (Information) Bill

The hon. Gentleman makes the point powerfully. I have had precisely the experience he describes. I meet parents who are not used to dealing with the highly educated chief education officer and the clever correspondence they receive. They are not letter writers so eventually they come to see me, as their MP, and I fight their corner because MPs have the resources and abilities to do so. Even then, however, there are difficulties because sometimes there is an almost ideological commitment to inclusion. Anybody who is against inclusion is regarded as an enemy—as I was when pursuing some cases, although I made my point and won in the end. I believe that some children need special provision that is not found in a mainstream school. Another proposal, which has been piloted in my constituency and which I strongly support, is to set up inclusion units in schools, especially in secondary schools. When there are serious behaviour problems in the classroom youngsters can go to the inclusion unit where they are given one-to-one tuition for two or three days until they have settled down and can return to mainstream classes. The system works brilliantly, but the problem is that such units are not available in every school and some of them have time-limited funding. Accepting that such units are necessary in many of our schools would be a tremendous advantage not only to youngsters with special needs but also to the teachers and the other pupils in the class who suffer from the stress and disruption sometimes caused by children with special needs.