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Special Educational Needs and Disability (Support) Bill

My hon. Friend makes her point well, almost to the extent that I need not comment further—but I shall, if I may. She is right about the issues associated with the dental impact of soothers. We must be slightly careful to ensure that parents who are sitting at home watching this debate are not fearful of doing almost anything, having listened to what we have said. The vast majority of parents love, care for and want to do what is right for their children, and would be horrified to learn that what they think is doing the right thing for their children—giving them a soother—is having an adverse effect on them. She is right to say that Sure Start centres are very well placed to help, but primary schools can be too. A parent of a child who is in primary school may well have another child of pre-primary school age, so that is another route by which parents can be educated about why certain types of soother are less appropriate than others and why others are more appropriate. By that means, we can ensure that something is done to address a speech and language problem that is easily solvable, so that the resources and support can be concentrated on other problems, rather than on children whose difficulty is not simply down to being given the wrong sort of soother. I ask the Minister to speak to her colleagues in the Department of Health to see what be done about the use of soothers? In conclusion, let us consider the transition from primary to secondary school. That involves the handover of responsibility and the huge gulf faced by a child who has grown up in the warm, comforting and supportive environment of a primary school and is then suddenly let loose in a high school, where the vast majority of children are bigger, brasher and more menacing—whether or not that is their intention—than that small child who has come up from primary school. We need to do a lot more to manage that transition, which could involve a system of supporting not only children with SEN, but all children who move from primary to secondary school. Perhaps we could have a system whereby some primary teachers move through for a term, in order to carry on working in a classroom environment with those primary children who are making the transition, particularly the children with SEN. It is a good point at which to tell some children that it is time for them to have new experiences and to have somebody new working with them. It is perhaps an opportunity for them to move to another stage of their development by having a new support worker. For other children, a support worker needs to move through to ensure that the stresses of moving schools and of changing support worker are both being managed. Again, the matter needs to be looked at with a fresh pair of eyes to ensure that the range of children who are making the transition from primary to secondary education—not just children with SEN—have that support. This morning's debate has been extremely good, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Buckingham on introducing the Bill. He commands great authority in this House on this matter. I believe I speak for colleagues on both sides of this House when I say that we look to him as one of the specialists in this subject. I congratulate all those who have spoken this morning, and indeed, all those who are yet to speak, on a matter that should be on the front pages of our newspapers, not just consigned—I say this with the greatest respect—to the work of the Hansard reporters.