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Special Educational Needs and Disability (Support) Bill

I cannot give the exact reference here, but I think that the hon. Lady will find it in the Bow Group report, "SEN: The Truth about Inclusion", which was produced last year. A lot of interesting research data were collected as part of the report. If we make more money follow the child, we put parents in the driving seat. However, doing so will achieve more than that: it will encourage other forms of inclusion. As appropriate funding accompanies a child's needs, schools will be able to use the additional cash to develop specialist units on site. That means that in some lessons, children with particular needs can be taught with others who share the same difficulties, and in others they can muck in with the rest of their year group. Crucially, SEN children will be allowed to socialise together, particularly in break time and extended school time, and also to take part in the whole school community with other children. Such a system will work for some schools and some children. For others, however, special schools will always be a better option. For children who feel stigmatised or withdrawn, a period in a special school may be necessary, just as it would be for children with severe difficulties. These are complex and personal issues, which is why parents must be in a position to make the decisions that they think right for their children. That means ensuring that special schools are there to be chosen. However, the trouble is that since 1997 more than 9,000 special school places have been lost, and with them has gone expert provision for children in great need. In 2008, there were 174 fewer special schools than in 1997; one in seven special schools has been lost. That links directly to clause 3. Between 7 and 9 per cent. of all permanent exclusions from mainstream schools are given to pupils with a statement of special educational needs—pupils disproportionately represented in the pupil referral unit system. If more of those pupils had been given the option of going to special schools, more would undoubtedly have been given more appropriate provision. That would have meant that fewer would have been excluded in the first place. We need to look at the issue flexibly; what is appropriate for each individual child is a matter of horses for courses. What we suggest does not mean that inclusion does not work, just that we need a system that is more responsive to the needs of children and their parents' judgment. We want an education system that offers parents real choice to decide what is best for their children, and there should be an end to inclusion "come what may", in favour of getting a balance. We need to think more smartly about exclusion. We need to make sure that we give back powers to heads and teachers to deal with genuinely disobedient, disruptive or violent children and that SEN children are given every opportunity to succeed, so that they do not become just another exclusion statistic, having failed at school because of the absence of the suitable and appropriate provision to which they are entitled. In conclusion, I should say that at the moment the whole system is too cumbersome, bureaucratic and stressful—and often too costly, with the money going to the wrong targets. Parents coping with SEN children are already under a lot of pressure; they need help, advice and support, not barriers constantly being put in their way, wearing them down. They do not need to be made to go through lots of hoops or to be threatened with adversarial hearings. They should not have to fight all the way for what is rightfully for them and their children. As my hon. Friend said, too often it is the more articulate, middle-class parents who stand any chance of fending their way through this complicated and stressful system. In some parts of the country, there are examples of a much more user-friendly system working in certain schools and local authority areas, but in too many the reverse is true, and it is still far too much of a postcode lottery. I hope that the Bill will be able to address some of these problems. First, we need better training of teachers so that they can identify the problem and intervene earlier, and carry more professional clout in securing the appropriate support and being part of the decision and policy-making process, as my hon. Friend mentioned. Secondly, we need to ensure that SEN provision is a standard component of Ofsted reports, in the same way that standards of teaching, examination results and the welfare of children in the care of schools are an integral part of Ofsted inspections. Thirdly, we need to tackle, as the Bill endeavours to do in an interesting way, the conveyor belt of raw exclusion, whereby children are simply excluded without proper regard to how they can be properly picked up on outside the school. That is no one's interests, notwithstanding the fact that we need to ensure that teachers' and heads' authority and powers, which are being stripped away far too much, are given back to them. The Bill puts forward some perfectly reasonable proposals in a not overly prescriptive way. As such, I hope that the Government will respond to it favourably and positively. I hope that there will be the opportunity to scrutinise its proposals in more detail in Committee, and on that basis I very much wish it well.