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Special Educational Needs and Disability (Support) Bill

I agree entirely. I have come across a great many cases, not least in some disadvantaged communities, in which parents instinctively feel that they want their child to be in with everybody else for reasons of social acceptance. That sometimes causes them to understate the significance of their child's problem. I entirely understand why they might think that way, but it is absolutely critical that people should not feel stigmatised or embarrassed about acknowledging their child's particular difficulty, and even perhaps about having a label appended to it. That is the lever that will secure for the parent or parents the necessary support for their child. But yes, that is a problem, and one that we must work to overcome. I said that 20 per cent. of children have special educational needs, and 7 per cent. of children in schools are disabled. We can examine the outcomes. According to the latest statistics that are available, those children manage to get five A* to C-grade GCSEs in only 14 per cent. of cases, whereas the figure for the rest of their age cohort—those who do not experience special educational needs or disability—is no less than 65 per cent. The children about whom I am speaking are nine times—I repeat, nine times—more likely to be permanently excluded from school, and 80 per cent. of children with learning difficulties have suffered bullying. In 2009, 75 per cent. of the children and young people in our pupil referral units, to the massive overhaul and improvement of which I know the Minister is committed, are those with special educational needs. If we look at the end of the educational career journey, we see that 50 per cent. and more of disabled adults in this country are unemployed. Even that shocking and harrowing statistic blurs the reality that within it, there are significant variants on the theme depending on the particular condition from which an individual suffers. For example, the evidence shows that only somewhere between 12 and 15 per cent. of adults on the autistic spectrum end up in employment. That is a massively serious situation, and it is a tribute to the Government that in response to the interim report of the Lamb review—Brian Lamb's review of parental confidence in the special educational needs system—Ministers have announced funding of £31 million for pilot projects to improve expectations and outcomes for children with SEN and disability. I welcome that, but I argue that at least some of the contributory factors to the unsatisfactory outcomes from which those children currently suffer include issues that I address today in the Bill—a lack of sufficient expertise and training to cater to the needs of SEN and disability children; a frankly deficient inspection process, which often fails to identify the prevalence and nature of the special educational needs or disability of pupils in schools; and a relentless drive in some parts of the country for permanent exclusions from school, including of children with marked special educational needs and disability. I shall come on to that in more detail later. I say with all courtesy to the Minister that that situation is unsatisfactory and cannot go unchecked. There is scope for beneficial reform, and I look to the Minister today either to embrace the provisions of my Bill or to set out alternative means by which its objectives can and will be delivered.