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Special Educational Needs and Disability (Support) Bill

Once again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments—that is the first time I have been called intoxicating in this Chamber, but I hope it will not be the last. [Interruption.] I could get used to this! I totally agree with his point, because hiding these things is part of a cultural reluctance to talk about them. If one had a disabled child 40 or 50 years ago, it was an issue of shame; people would give up their babies and send them off to homes to be looked after. Some of the stories coming out about the closure of the asylum institutions have involved people who would never be living in an institution these days; they would be living perfectly happy lives in supported communities. I welcome the cultural change and the culture of human rights that has taken a firm hold in this country, which plays to the nation's very deep-rooted sense of justice and rights for all, and openness. I welcome the fact that the BBC took this courageous step—hats off to it for doing so—and good luck to that presenter in her future career. I wish to talk a little about the Waterton junior and infants school in Wakefield, which serves the Lupset estate and is under consultation for closure. I visited it a couple of months ago, and when I talked to the teachers I was struck by the situation there, because the school has a higher than average number of children with special educational statements. The Government need to examine what happens when local authorities consult on school closure programmes. In addition to the hon. Gentleman's Bill, which talks about inspections, some further statutory guidance needs to be issued to local authorities on what happens to pupils with special educational needs in any closure programme and any transfer programme. We know that when children with SEN form a relationship with their special educational needs co-ordinator of additional help or with a particular teacher, that relationship is vital and precious to their learning. In some cases, the help will carry on with the child throughout the school. As soon as the question of closure is raised in any school, we see the flight of staff, because understandably they will think, "Which school are the children going to transfer to? Will there be an opening for me? Will there be a vacancy for me?" They will make their own arrangements and start applying for other jobs. I cannot stress enough to the Minister how important the needs of pupils with SEN are and that in order for the transition to a new school to be made it is vital that those SEN helpers and assistants transfer with the children. Where an ordinary child is only just starting school, is six years old, has had one or two years at their school and is transferring to another, bigger school, where they perhaps do not know anybody—perhaps they are transferring with their class cohort or perhaps the other children have scattered to different schools—such a move is challenging. We must understand that for a child who has special educational needs not only does such a move involve the fear that can come with it, but they lose the person who helped them to do well in class and to keep up with the other children. That is of particular concern to parents in my constituency, so will the Minister respond to that in her speech? Perhaps she could also write to me, so that I can work with the school to ensure that if the authority does decide to close it, the process can be properly handled. The hon. Gentleman has said that provision falls into a black hole in the teenage years, when children enter secondary school, and that is often the case. A lady who had two children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder came to my constituency surgery a month or two ago. One of the children was in a residential school and the other was at home with her. The issue was not so much about the support that he was getting in school—he was at an appropriate school for his needs—but that he was getting up two or three times in the night. She had a teenager, but in reality it was like dealing with a newborn baby—and it had been like that ever since he was a newborn baby. Those of us who have had children and remember those hectic early months of a child's life, where one is in an intense period of parenting, getting up to answer 2 am, 4 am and 6 am calls and sacrificing one's own sleep pattern, cannot begin to imagine what that lady was suffering over a period of 10, 12, 15 years with her son.