John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

It is a pleasure to follow the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Kevin Brennan, and I am particularly grateful to him for his generous remarks this afternoon. I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge and pay tribute to the Secretary of State for Health and the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, who have been unstinting in their support and encouragement of me in this venture during the past 10 months.

A great many colleagues have engaged with the review, either by inviting me to visit a pre-school, primary school, secondary school or somewhere with post-16 provision, or by making a written submission. To each and every one of them, for their contribution to an important task, I am greatly indebted. Although it is invidious to single out an individual, I am moved to pay a special tribute to someone who has gone the extra mile—way beyond the call of duty—in submitting material to me and offering me personal support and encouragement throughout, and that is Mr. Blunkett, whom I am delighted to see in his place.

The Under-Secretary referred to the process through which my colleagues on the review advisory group and I have gone in the past 10 months. We have sought evidence from four different sources. First, we launched an online consultation questionnaire in October, to which, on the due date of 18 January, we had received more than 2,000 replies, of which just over half were from parents, telling us what they thought, what worked, what did not work, and what was needed.

Secondly, we staged a series of focus or consultation groups around the country, calling on children, young people and their parents to offer their impressions of the state of services. In addition, we thought it justified and prudent to stage two particular focus groups on the thorny questions of augmentative and alternative communication under the auspices of Scope on the one hand, and of provision for young offenders, courtesy of the Prison Reform Trust, on the other.

Thirdly, as the Under-Secretary said, we went round the country, visiting pre-schools, primary schools, secondary schools and post-16 facilities. A plethora of different examples were presented to us. We wanted to see not only London and the south-east but the midlands, the north and the south-west, urban and rural areas, mixed communities, different social cohorts and so on, to get the widest possible representative picture of what currently is—and is not—on offer.

Finally, we thought it right to secure the services of some noted and distinguished academic researchers in speech, language and communication, a group of whom have engaged in a detailed project to look at service provision in six different areas, and seek to adduce evidence from their studies, the better to inform future policy making and the prospects of necessary and beneficial research.

We have formed some fairly clear and explicit conclusions, based on what we saw around the country. Without doubt, some excellent professionals and high-quality services are out there, but, on the whole, the current state of speech, language and communication provision is highly unsatisfactory. Access to information and services is often poor; the quality of services is very mixed; continuity across the age range is lacking; joint working between health and education professionals, which is so critical to achieving success, is rare, and the system is characterised by high variability and a lack of equity, the short-hand translation of which is that a postcode lottery currently exists throughout the country. Above all, the priority attached to communication is too low. In our judgment, that must change.

David Tredinnick (Bosworth, Conservative)

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the report. I wrote to him about specific problems in my constituency with the recognition and treatment of dyslexia. Will he say a word about his findings about the more difficult conditions of autism and Asperger's syndrome, which appear increasingly to affect children nowadays?

John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

I certainly will pick up on the theme that my hon. Friend has identified, because it is essential to cater for all the groups on the spectrum. I will say something more shortly about the need for a broad range of provision.

The Under-Secretary referred to the five themes around which the review's recommendations have been formulated. Communication is crucial—it is the key life skill that enables children to learn, achieve, make friends and interact with the world around them. It is a vital part of the equipment of citizenship, yet all too often it has not enjoyed that priority in the minds of commissioners or policy makers. Sometimes an unwritten, unspoken and—dare I say it?—lazy assumption has been made that children will speak when they are ready, and other important aspects of the children's development agenda have tended to elbow speech, language and communication out of the way.

That is why we have recommended the creation of a ministerial communication council upon which both the Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families would be prominently represented. We believe, too, that an identified individual with relevant expertise and commitment—a communication champion—should be appointed to drive forward the process of implementation, to report to the communication council, to raise awareness and to disseminate best practice. The communication champion will, over time and after appropriate and due preparation, have responsibility for overseeing and running the national year of speech, language and communication.

As part of that process of investing in speech, language and communication services and making them a great priority, it is right that information at key ages and stages of a child's development should be proactively made available, in a readily accessible form, to children, young people and, in particular, their parents, charting the normal course of communication development, indicating where a person should go if there is a difficulty and advising parents on how best they can assist in the process of bolstering their children's speech, language and communication development. That concept—that communication is crucial—accompanied and reinforced by a series of specific recommendations, is very important.

The Minister rightly referred to early intervention. At the risk of being marginally pedantic, I would like to describe it as early identification and intervention. If we are to identify early, we need regular monitoring and surveillance of children's speech, language and communication development at key ages and stages. We have not been over-prescriptive—there is scope for differences of opinion on the exact point at which it is most appropriate to undertake the monitoring; indeed, there is also scope for local variation in what is judged to be right—but the principle that monitoring and surveillance should be done, that it should be done regularly, and that it should be done with a view to securing a signpost to appropriate assistance if there is a problem, is important and, indeed, inviolable.

We all know that if we intervene early when there is a problem, the child has a better chance, other things being equal, of overcoming the difficulty, accessing the national curriculum and fulfilling his or her potential. The logical corollary of that is that if we do not intervene early, the problems mount: emotional and psychological difficulties, behavioural problems, lower educational attainment, poorer employment prospects, persistent communication impairment, challenges to mental health and, in extremis, even a descent into offending and reoffending. That is why it is so important that we intervene early, both through that monitoring and surveillance, and by making speech, language and communication a prime component—a centrepiece—of the work of all children's centres.

David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside, Labour)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his enormous generosity towards me. I also congratulate him on an excellent piece of work and on persuading the Government to have a year dedicated to bringing it alive and implementing its recommendations. I would like to pick up his point about early identification. Following my hon. Friend the Minister's comment about point three of the five-point plan, may I suggest that in the identification process, we need to take account of the fact that for many children—not all, but many—there will have been a problem in identifying speech, language and communication difficulties in their lives already, before they reach a statutory group or even before they are identified by Sure Start, and that it is very important to work with the family, not just the child, on bringing alive that child's talent and capability?

John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

The right hon. Gentleman could not have put it more powerfully if he had tried. That early intervention is incredibly important. Yes, it involves the child, but it is important to ensure that we have the benefit of the services of multidisciplinary teams. Precisely which representative will be relevant in a particular case will vary from one situation to another, but we need to have speech and language therapists, teachers, classroom assistants and special educational needs co-ordinators as part of the mix. Indeed, health visitors might be needed in certain circumstances, too. Some flexibility in that process is important.

Reference has already been made to the continuum of services, and I want to underline that we need to ensure that, through effective joint commissioning between education and health services, we commission services that are across the piece. They should be universal services that can be of benefit to all children and young people who need to have their capacity to communicate taught, honed and nurtured. We need targeted services for those who require a little additional help—sometimes only for a short period and sometimes for longer—and specialist services, which are often tailored for the benefit of those with acute and ongoing needs, who will realistically require extensive and specialist provision, including therapy, sometimes for long periods.

I simply say, in all courtesy, to the Government that I have made recommendations in respect of augmentative and assistive communication—that is to say, for those who require communication aids—and in respect of the requirements of young offenders, about which there is still some anxiety and scepticism. My message to the Government is that in taking this process forward and securing what I hope will be the advantageous implementation of the report's recommendations, we must be sure that we do more than just the easy stuff. We must cater more widely than just for those with relatively minor difficulties and those who need low-dosage intervention, of whom there are large numbers. They are incredibly important, and Ministers are right to highlight those cases. However, we also have a duty to do more—to do all that is necessary—to bring benefit to those whose needs are the most acute. A child or young person who requires an expensive piece of technological kit in order to have a voice is deeply needy. They might be non-verbal, and in such situations we must stop at nothing to ensure that the appropriate help is provided. We must not fight shy of knowing the scale and incidence of the challenge with which we are confronted.

In taking forward the pathfinders, we will learn a great deal. There will be five areas involved, and I am grateful to the Government for the fact that they will be funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families or the Department of Health—they can fight about that between themselves—and will have a responsibility to assess need, to devise services, to secure the appropriate skilled work force, to put the processes into effect, to monitor the outcomes and to report the results. That means having a work force, to boot, which is why we have recommended that speech, language and communication must be at the heart of all the qualifications leading to the integrated qualifications framework. Qualified teacher status must demand a greater knowledge of, and—to a degree—expertise in, speech, language and communication. It is also right that speech, language and communication should be a core requirement and an elective module of the new master's degree in teaching and learning, on whose introduction I congratulate the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

Joint working must be to the fore, but I am sorry to say that at the moment, that principle is honoured more often in the breach than in the observance, especially at the level of strategic planning and priority setting. That is why I have said that we should let each children's trust designate an appointed person to drive forward the pursuit of improved speech, language and communication outcomes. I speak possibly as the voice of cynical experience when I say that I have a sense that if something is everybody's responsibility, ultimately it is no one's responsibility. If we name an individual and give him or her a task, set the benchmark, require the assessment and demand the performance, at least there will be a likelihood of a catalyst for improvement. Certainly, the public would have someone to whom they could properly direct their complaints or representations if success were not achieved.

Tackling postcode variations is critical. Local variation, local initiation, local social entrepreneurship, and local variety depending on the make-up of one area relative to another are of course valid and necessary. However, we need to make some sort of core offer to children and young people that they can depend upon. They need a certain level and type of service, irrespective of the part of the country in which they happen to live. In that regard, I perhaps risk upsetting the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, my hon. Friend Tim Loughton, but I say that there is a compelling case for the continuation of early-years targets beyond 2011, and for working towards the development of a national indicator on speech, language and communication as the prelude to a public service agreement target post-2011.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have to say that engagement in this review has been the single most stimulating and rewarding endeavour of my 11-year parliamentary life. It is about two things. It is about helping needy, marginalised, vulnerable and sometimes frightened young people, because that is the right and decent thing to do. I have a child who is so affected, and I make no apology for trying to do my best to ensure that other children get the sort of excellent help that my son Oliver is receiving.

However, this issue is not just or even mainly about compassion or niceness or being decent; it is also about the authentic self-interest of Britain plc, because tackling these problems is relevant to the educational attainment agenda. It is relevant to the greater qualifications agenda, to the acquisition of vocational skills agenda, to the fight against antisocial behaviour agenda, to the improvement of public health agenda, and to the pursuit of the commercial advantage of UK plc in an age in which a job for life is a relic of the past and the premium placed on speech, language and communication in today's knowledge economy is greater than ever. If in my small way, with the assistance of a fantastic advisory group and the support and engagement of parliamentarians throughout the House, I can broker an improvement in services for, and the life chances of, these vulnerable children and young people, I can say that I shall die a happier man—although not, I hope, just yet.

Hilary Armstrong (North West Durham, Labour)

I too congratulate John Bercow on his report, which will stimulate a great deal more thinking and many more ideas. In a sense, he finished where I want to begin, with the point that paying attention to this issue is absolutely critical for the future of this country.

An interesting report was published by the Institute for Public Policy Research last November, entitled, I believe, "Freedom's Orphans". It examined two cohorts of children—we are very good at longitudinal studies in this country—born on a particular day in different years and looked into the differences in their lives. What it showed, among many other things, was that the very skills that people need to get the jobs available these days—skills centred on basic good communication—are frequently not developed. It showed that too many children are growing up without the experience of really good interaction with adults, so they do not acquire the negotiating skills or the communication skills required for them to get what they want. For example, they often do not make eye contact or convey the sort of things that we often take for granted. That means that they are unable to get jobs in call centres or in the service industries—the sort of jobs available for them today.

That report stimulated my interest in this topic, and I have also had a lifelong interest in trying to improve education. I think that we have too often missed this crucial issue as we have sought to develop educational opportunity for all, trying to give everyone a fair chance in this world. I would have liked to deal with many issues in the Bercow report, but I am going to confine myself to two areas. The first, which is centred on the work force, I shall touch on only briefly.

The hon. Member for Buckingham is absolutely right to say that we must take far more seriously the point that the whole work force must have appropriate training and support in order to tackle these problems with all the children they work with; but we must also try to identify precisely and at an early stage when things are going wrong, and subsequently develop a series of strategies to intervene effectively.

I was in a primary school a couple of weeks ago, where the teacher identified to me—privately—two children in the class whom she was worried about. Both of them lacked effective communication and language skills. For one of them it was straightforward to see why; for the other it was much more difficult. The teacher was saying, "I don't feel I have the knowledge or understanding to help these two children adequately." I was horrified, because that simply should not happen today. Across the board, attention to the work force is absolutely critical.

It will not surprise the hon. Member for Buckingham to hear that the second issue that I want to speak about is early identification and intervention. I am absolutely convinced that that can be done much more systematically and rigorously than at present. As we have provided many more children's centres, with access for every family, we must do more than just hope that children are identified: when it is clear that there will not be normal speech, language and communication development in families, we must rigorously ensure that those children are identified and worked with early.

I have told the House previously that I have taken up again with NCH—soon to change its name—and had the privilege of visiting some of the children's centres in which it is involved in the Northumberland area, including the Ashington children's centre. NCH's briefing for Members highlights its work, which includes employing language development workers to identify at an early age children who have, or are at risk of, speech and language delay or disorder. It offers individual outreach support to families, who will be visited over a six to eight-week period. It is finding that addressing the problem early through such support to the family results in much less reporting to specialist speech and language workers later. By the time such children start school, they are at the same stage as every other child. That is the direction that we need to take.

As the hon. Gentleman's report says, those in prison have huge communication difficulties, and that is because we failed earlier. Failure in communication skills frequently leads children and young people into lifestyles that they did not start off wanting to get into, but they end up in the juvenile justice system and then in prisons. Once we know that we can do something about that, we have no excuse not to do it. We have programmes that deliver the rigour and sustained activity that will transform children's lives and opportunities. We have no option but to use those intervention programmes to identify children early, and to address speech and language difficulties so that they do not become behavioural and other difficulties as the children grow older.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution, and I also thank my hon. Friend the Minister, because I believe that the Government will get hold of this issue and transform opportunities for millions of children in the future.

Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister (Children, Young People and Families), Children, Schools and Families; Mid Dorset & North Poole, Liberal Democrat)

I congratulate John Bercow not only on his review and his leadership, but on the persistence with which he has raised these issues since his election to Parliament, which has contributed to both the report and the Government's positive response.

My eyes were first opened to the deficiency in this area more than 12 years ago, when I talked to parents whose children had just completed their schooling at a special school for those with mild learning difficulties. It became clear that if the children's speech, language and communication needs had been addressed at an early stage, some of them might well have gained access to mainstream schools, and their educational outcomes at 16 would have been very different. The consequences of not dealing with such issues in an appropriate and timely way are lost time and, it could almost be said, lost lives. We should consider the behaviour of children who are frustrated when they cannot communicate as they wish to, underperformance, and involvement in the criminal justice system with all that that implies. I sincerely hope that no more time will be lost, and that none will be lost in implementing the report's recommendations.

The report identifies five key themes. Although—like Hilary Armstrong—I shall focus on early identification and intervention, I think it important for all five of those themes to work together to bring about the outcomes that we desire. In the short time available, I shall concentrate on just a few of the issues that they raise.

First, it is important to remember that communication is a two-way process. While the needs of the child are central, we must take account of communication within the family, communication between nursery and teaching staff and the child, and communication in many other contexts. Sadly, features of today's society are contributing to basic communication problems: the lack of conversation between adults and adults, adults and children, and children and children, in the home and in play. That in turn derives from the tendency towards TV meals and time spent with television, DVDs and computers in the bedroom.

At the more severe end of the spectrum of needs is the importance of not just early identification but appropriate follow-up intervention, both of which require a skilled work force. I particularly welcome the report's recommendations in those areas. Miscommunication is all too easy if, for example, a teacher interprets lack of eye contact as challenging behaviour, rather than picking up signals about special needs. We need a balance between specialist training and general special needs training. The latter is now belatedly being included in teacher training courses, but in my view it should have been tackled before we embarked on our main inclusion agenda.

There should be clarity about when a specialist speech therapist is needed, and when the more generic approach of training teachers and early-years workers in specific skills will be sufficient. Clear assessment and planning must take place to ensure that there are enough speech therapists. I am sure that all Members have been visited by parents who tell them that a son or daughter should be having speech therapy, but nothing has happened throughout the term.

It is all too easy to tick boxes, suggesting that a service is being provided, even when children are not being given the specialist therapy that they need for their particular conditions. I believe that all children with a given degree of speech impairment should have access to specialist nursery provision or to specialist services within mainstream provision, such as those provided by I CAN. Such services should be provided within reasonable travel distances, and consideration must be given to transport provision. Behavioural problems can so easily develop at an early age, threatening a child's whole future.

I mentioned the two-way process of communication. Let me give a couple of examples to which I particularly relate. One involves sight-impaired children who do not have the appropriate text books in an appropriate format. Those need to be provided. How can such communication take place if there are no books in the appropriate format, particularly text books? On the hearing-impaired, I understand that some teaching assistants are not fully qualified in sign language. It is not just a question of having the technique of sign language; there needs to be an interpretation process as well. I am told that national vocational qualification level 2 in sign language is not sufficient for the interpretation of lessons. I emphasise the importance of this two-way communication process.

Sadly, from personal experience I can relate to the remarks in the review, and the comments made in evidence, about the ping-pong between health and education budgets. I have often heard it said, "No, that's not up to us to provide; that has to come out of health money."

I also relate to the issue of there being different boundaries. In my constituency, the boundaries between the children's services and the primary care trusts are not coterminous, with the consequence that much is not considered.

The report makes important recommendations on commissioning, to get us out of these traps. I endorse—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker)

Order. I am afraid the hon. Lady has had her six minutes.

Sharon Hodgson (Gateshead East & Washington West, Labour)

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and an honour to follow Annette Brooke, who made a typically thoughtful and considered contribution. I am glad that time has been found for this excellent report to be discussed before we break for the summer recess.

I must begin by congratulating John Bercow on his report. It is the culmination of a great deal of work, and his expertise on these issues means that it should be treated as an authoritative framework for improving the outcomes of children with speech, language and communication needs—SLCN. As always, his speech was an oratorical tour de force which demonstrated not only a broad range of expertise on this topic, but also an ability to articulate the challenges facing children and parents in a way that commands attention and urges action from those listening. I had the hon. Gentleman's support for my private Member's Bill on special educational needs—SEN—and I am thrilled that it has now received Royal Assent. I know what a powerful advocate he is for those children who face a tougher start in life because of their own unique needs, and I would like to repay some of his support by stating that I will help in whatever way I can to ensure that the recommendations of this report become realities.

The five areas the report highlights are eminently sensible. I do not wish to make a lengthy contribution; instead, I shall look briefly at each of those five areas in turn, and highlight one or two recommendations that I believe stand out.

It is clear that more needs to be done to establish the fact that "communication is crucial". There is something of an irony in that point. It is often said in this Chamber that it is the responsibility of those who have a voice to use it on behalf of those who do not. Although we all know that SLCN comes in many different guises and that it is often not directly linked to speech problems, I still think it worth expressing that well-used political mantra today, because to some degree that is what this report calls on the Government to do if we are to make further progress.

I know from personal experience how difficult things are for a child with SLCN, and the frustrations and hurdles that they must face. Many Members will know from previous debates that my son, Joseph, is severely dyslexic. He did not start to speak until he was three. His problems, and those we have faced in order to try to get his voice heard—as it were—are just one example among millions throughout the country, but they are the ones with which I am most familiar, so I ask Members to forgive me if I use his story as a reference point on occasion.

There is a strong case to be made, because it should be self-evident that without the ability to communicate clearly, the chances children and adults have to reach their full potential in life may be limited. The numbers of such adults and children are not insignificant; there are places in this country where more than 50 per cent. of pupils have some form of SLCN. More broadly, there are estimated to be more than 1 million children throughout the country with SLCN. That is why the recommendation to establish a communication council should be fully supported by the Government.

I hope and expect that the opportunity that the report provides to do the things it recommends will not be missed. My attention was drawn to recommendations 5 and 7, which concern the provision of information. I am sure that hon. Members all know by now that I was lucky enough to be drawn second in the ballot for private Members' Bills and that my personal experience drove me to draft a Bill designed to support children with SEN. In my discussions with parents, charities and educational organisations, it became strikingly clear that without available and accessible information the path of progress would always be far more long and winding than is necessary. The consensus on that opinion and the conviction with which it is held make those recommendations stand out as particular priorities. Parents cannot make informed decisions about the education of their children without information, so we have an obligation to provide it if we are serious about raising outcomes for children with SEN and SLCN. I hope that the recommendations on information will be swiftly carried out.

The case for early intervention is well established, and we know that investment in the early years of a child's education will reap rewards further down the line. Of course, the most important benefactor of those rewards is the child, but it is always worth pointing out to those who fund support services that money laid out early in a child's life can often be saved tenfold in later years. That is why I agree strongly with the charity TreeHouse, which says that there is a strong need for a cost-benefit analysis of effective interventions. I add my full support for each of the recommendations on early intervention. The remit of the Rose review has already been extended to look at the most effective ways of supporting children with dyslexia, and one hopes that there is no insurmountable reason why it could not be extended again to cover SLCN.

The development of a child is a joint responsibility of the family and the state, which is why it is so important to ensure that services are developed with the family in mind. Thus, I welcome the third section of the report, which also contains recommendations relating to the work force, all of which are sensible not only because of the impact they could have for children with SLCN, but because of the positive impact they could have on tackling the wider challenges facing teachers, who do not feel adequately prepared to identify and then support children with SEN.

I have raised previously in this House the fact that there is scope for increasing the content on both SLCN and SEN in initial teacher training. Recommendation 23 rightly states that the new masters in teaching and learning should almost certainly have a core module covering SLCN and wider SEN. That would provide a welcome sign that the potential that that masters offers for the ongoing professional development of teachers will not only be realised, but will be of vital benefit to all children.

So much of our success in working with children comes when people are willing to work together, with the best interests of the child at heart. I am sure that Ministers in the Department for Children, Schools and Families will work closely with those in the Department of Health to try to ensure that no child is allowed to slip through the net. It is key that parents and schools should also work together and communicate with each other as they both monitor the progress of all children, not just those with SLCN and SEN. I know that that is usually the case.

The last of the five areas into which the report is split focuses on ensuring consistency and equity for families. For too long, the provision for children with SLCN and other SEN has varied wildly depending on where in the country one lives. Joseph received speech and language therapy from when he was 18 months old when we were living in Gateshead. When he was seven, we moved to the London borough of Merton and that vital speech therapy came to an end, because Merton said that he did not need it as his speech fell within the "normal" range. We moved back to Gateshead, and Joseph was reassessed when he was 14 years old. Strangely, Gateshead's authority said that it thought he would benefit from speech therapy. As a parent, it is hard for me to come to terms with the fact that, as a result of my work and my moving around the country, he has lost out on seven years of priceless speech therapy. As a policy maker, I am annoyed and frustrated that this patchwork quilt of provision exists, and I believe it is up to this House to bring that shameful reality to an end.

The wild variation in experiences, and the supporting figures, should not be perpetuated by a similar variation in provision and action. I was particularly pleased to note recommendation 39, which states that the Government should make available

"as much data as possible...about the educational attainment of children... with SLCN".

Not only is educational attainment important; other factors are also significant, including emotional and physical well-being.

Clarification is required as to which groups the recommendations apply to. For example, one would assume that the report includes deaf and hard-of-hearing children, but that needs to be confirmed, and I hope that the Minister or the hon. Member for Buckingham will do so today.

The beauty of the report lies in the fact that many of its recommendations appear to be so blindingly obvious. Its strength is in the way that it pulls together the different strands that need attention and spells out a clear and coherent plan for dealing with them. Of course, a strong and persuasive argument can appear to have been obvious all along, but the reader of this report will be left in no doubt about what needs to be done, and that is thanks to the hon. Gentleman's tireless work. His skill, intelligence and good-natured tenacity have ensured a first-class report, and I congratulate him again on his commitment. I promise him that I shall ensure that not only as many people as possible read this vital report, but that, more importantly, they act upon its recommendations as soon as possible.

Nick Hurd (Whip, Whips; Ruislip - Northwood, Conservative)

My hon. Friend John Bercow has long been a champion of those who struggle to communicate and this report does him enormous personal credit. He is also groundbreaking in pushing the Government to be bolder in going for earlier intervention and adopting the policies of prevention.

I want to address my brief remarks to one specific section and that is young offenders, 7,000 of whom enter young offender institutions every year, two thirds of whom will reoffend at enormous cost to society. The key to getting them back on the straight and narrow, as it were, must lie in improving their literacy and social skills and their prospects of securing some employment in the future. We must be honest in recognising that these skills are not being picked up in schools, because far too many of these children are not engaged in the school process at all.

To be fair to the Government, they are investing in this area. Spending on education in young offender institutions has risen from about £18.5 million a year in 2001-02 to something approaching £63 million in 2006-07. But the question is whether we are getting results from that investment. Are we paying sufficient attention to the evidence from the research of Professor Karen Bryan and others that perhaps two thirds of the inhabitants of those young offender institutions cannot engage with the education process because they simply do not have the literacy and communication skills required? Are we wasting money and time? It feels as though it is time to think again, because on the one hand we have the huge cost to society of reoffending and the growing cost to the taxpayer of education in these institutions, set against the relatively small cost of earlier intervention in speech and language therapy to ensure that more of these young people can access these programmes. The research of Karen Bryan and others, dating back to 2001-02, shows that reoffending has reduced by 50 per cent. in those small pilots of children who have benefited from speech and language therapy. That is a big number, and it suggests that we need to build on that research.

We are getting warm words from the Government. There was a reference in response to this excellent report in the youth crime action plan, but the reality that has been brought out by other speakers is that the provision of speech and language therapy falls between Departments. There has been no systematic research on the impact of speech and language therapy on reoffending since 2005. I asked the Minister how many full-time therapists were working in the custodial estate and he did not know. I can tell him. He does not need to refer to the officials. It is one, and that is inadequate.

There appears to be some paralysis in the system because the Government tend to take the view that provision should be driven at a local level, and my political instincts lead me to have some sympathy with that view. It is a good theory, but the problem is that it is not working in practice.

Even if the Government cannot bring themselves to cut through the inertia and apathy by spending a tiny amount of money—speech and language therapy costs £33,000 a year across 17 institutions, so we are talking about a sum of less than £1 million that could make a difference—and to drive this from the centre, surely there is more that they can do in two key areas. As a bare minimum, we should be investing more in systematic research to improve our understanding of whether speech and language therapy can be deployed on a bigger scale in young offender institutions and in larger scale prisons.

We need a bigger scale study of the impact on reoffending of wider provision of speech and language therapy. We see no movement from the Government on that at all, just inertia.

John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

My hon. Friend poses legitimate challenges to Ministers. Does he not agree that if, at present, significant numbers of those communication impaired young offenders attend educational and training courses only in an entirely perfunctory and tick-box capacity and gain little or no benefit in the process, the Government should be willing, if not to increase overall resources, to top-slice the education budget in young offenders institutions and ensure that some of the money is used to good effect rather than to nil effect?

Nick Hurd (Whip, Whips; Ruislip - Northwood, Conservative)

That is an extremely helpful intervention and reinforces the point that I was trying to make. We are spending £63 million a year on those institutions—£8,000 per pupil—and the fundamental question is whether that money is being spent wisely or whether a fraction of it could be diverted to improve the efficiency of that spending.

At the very least, we should be investing in more systematic research and sending a much stronger signal to primary care trusts and the governors of these institutions about the need to identify and meet demand. It is difficult to add anything to the words of Lord Ramsbotham, a previous inspector of prisons, who said:

"In all the years I have been looking at prisons and the treatment of offenders, I have never found anything so capable of doing so much for so many people at so little cost as the work that speech and language therapists carry out."

Those words were uttered some time ago; the Government have not responded. I have to say to the Minister that the apathy on his Benches is failing offenders, failing victims and failing taxpayers.

Douglas Carswell (Harwich, Conservative)

I welcome this debate, and salute my hon. Friend John Bercow. He has done a very good thing. Members of this legislature ought to be willing to think and act independently. Regardless of what colour rosettes members of the Executive might wear, elected MPs should be willing to look at public policy problems in the round.

Services for children with speech and language needs are not good enough. We have a real problem and I do not think that the status quo will do. With language therapy in particular, the provision does not seem to match the need. Unfortunately, I do not think that it is purely down to a lack of money. Generally, special educational needs provision is not good enough. The statementing process tends to be very confrontational and bureaucratic and, in my experience, quite discriminatory. It favours persistent parents and the articulate. In my experience, the hurdles that it creates trip up those who are most likely to stumble in the first place.

The report is worth while and I agree with what it says. However, I am slightly sceptical on one or two points, as I fear that too much of the report addresses symptoms. Symptoms need to be addressed and to be tackled, but more could be and needs to be done to tackle the causes. The cause of the problem is that the resources that will by definition always be finite—resources are always finite in any system—are being allocated more by bureaucratic fiat than by individual choices. Only those who are able to tackle the bureaucracy can exercise choice. Having advised more than two dozen parents in my constituency about how to tackle the system, I am aware of just how dreadful it can be.

I want to talk briefly about what I mean by addressing symptoms rather than the fundamental cause—the malaise. The provision of better information and advice is obviously needed—it is a good thing and we want it—but, in any system, when the end user is denied information that usually suggests that the system itself is failing. The system lacks accountability. When poor information is symptomatic of a wider failing or when the end user from any walk of life is kept in the dark and denied information, that is usually indicative of a wider unresponsiveness—that, too, is the case with special educational needs services.

I wonder whether Google and the internet might not be better at providing information than any Government or state-run initiative. Informal networks of parents and self-help groups may already be forming and sharing advice on how to tackle the system. Rather than just providing information, we should be focusing on making the system more responsive.

My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham is right to recognise the unquestionable fact that there is a postcode lottery, but surely it exists because the system is unresponsive. There is a lottery because provision is unresponsive and comes from the centre. The service people receive is random because it depends on where they live—they cannot do much about it. If the system was more responsive and more tailor-made to the individual and the locality, we could solve the problem. That a postcode lottery exists is not an argument for more centralised target setting, but makes the case for making public services more responsive.

Similarly, I am slightly sceptical when the report calls for officials to help to spread best practice. What report nowadays does not recommend that? Obviously, we want what works to be replicated and to replace what does not work, but innovation does not necessarily come from official champions and from the top down. In the age of Google, the point is that systems should allow best practice to replicate itself. If we are serious about allowing what works to be replicated and adopted elsewhere, the key is to make the system more responsive.

I welcome the call for early action. In several of my constituency cases, months and even years have been allowed to elapse before the local education system responded. Young children have been badly let down. Had there been intervention, action and, as my hon. Friend said, identification at the age of two, three, four or five, rather than much later on, the life chances of those children would be much better. Lack of early intervention is yet again symptomatic of an unresponsive system.

I have one or two ideas about what a future Government should do to tackle the cause of the problem—the unresponsiveness of the system. First, there would be great merit in allowing certain special schools the freedom to become special schools with academy status, which would allow them to develop to meet special educational needs as they see fit.

Secondly, we need to review the statementing process. A friend of mine, Sir Robert Balchin, has suggested that we replace the statementing process with a special needs profile. Rightly or wrongly, many parents feel that statements are issued on the basis of how much cash is available. Clearly, if the body issuing the statement is the organisation that manages the budget for SEN provision, the way it does one of those things might affect its regard for the other. However, although I welcome Sir Robert's proposed change, I do not think it goes far enough. Money concerns alone do not explain the reluctance of some local education authorities to issue statements; dogma is at work, too.

Finally, I wonder whether the lack of responsiveness that accounts for much of the problem that the report tries to address could be solved by giving the parents of children with special educational needs a new legal right. Could we enshrine in law a right that would allow them to request and receive control over their child's share of local authority funding—however the size of the pot was determined? If the child could not be provided with a speech and language therapist by the local authority, a better way of ensuring that it has what it needs would be to give its parents control over the money that is spent and that, miraculously, does not provide the outcome that they want. Parents of children with special needs have had a raw deal from public policy makers over many years. In part, that is explained by the fact that they have not had the articulate advocate that they now find in my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham. However, it is also because they are a relatively small group who are spread across the country and, in some cases, marginalised. They cannot attract the attention of policy makers, although the issue might be higher up the political agenda if they were more concentrated in some of the marginal parliamentary constituencies.

However, the upside is that the internet is having a profound impact on changing not only politics in general, but also the politics of special educational needs provision; it is raising the profile. The internet aggregates—it brings together people who have a specific interest in special educational needs—and it empowers people. The complex information and legal knowledge needed to make the system work is no longer the preserve of a few elite people. The internet breaks down barriers to entry. Through the internet, parents have a voice and do not have to rely on remote producers or politicians to speak up for them; they can speak for themselves. The internet gives the marginal a voice. In a post-bureaucratic age, that is how parents of children with special educational needs will be empowered. We need a public policy that reflects those trends, rather than one that attempts to frustrate them.

Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

I am pleased that we have had the opportunity to debate the Bercow report. I congratulate the Government on commissioning it and all those involved in the extensive research that has gone into it. Some doughty campaigners for special educational needs and powerful advocates for those with speech and language difficulties have been involved in today's debate. Many of them brought their personal experiences to it, which has enriched it. I am slightly puzzled about why we are dealing with the subject in a topical debate on the penultimate day before the summer recess, given that the review was published on 8 July, and given that the Government gave a statement accepting the report's key recommendations, which we welcome, and promised a full implementation plan in the autumn.

This is the 18th topical debate this Session, and the first one answered by Ministers from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. By far the most topical problem afflicting the DCSF is the turmoil surrounding the marking—inaccurate, delayed or otherwise—of this year's standard assessment tests, which were taken by 1.2 million 11 and 14-year-olds. As hon. Members have said, topically, in the past few days, the newspapers have been full of stories of administrative problems, computer blunders and appalling marking. Topically, thousands of children are about to go on their summer holidays not knowing how they fared; their reports will not contain the details of their marks. Most topically of all, in the past few days, the Secretary of State has suggested that the ETS contract could be terminated, but the Minister for Schools and Learners said the opposite just yesterday.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker)

Order. I am reluctant to stop the hon. Gentleman, but we ought to devote our time to the subject before the House.

Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

I shall immediately do that, of course. I reiterate that we very much welcome the review.

Hilary Armstrong (North West Durham, Labour)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)

With respect, I shall not, because the right hon. Lady had longer for her speech than I have for mine, and I do not get injury time for taking interventions.

I urge the Government to adopt the proposals in the review as comprehensively and as speedily as possible. The subject of speech, language and communication problems, and, more generally, special educational needs among children, has over the years been raised extensively by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, not least by members of my party, and not least by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. Indeed, he set up the commission on special needs in education in December 2005, under the excellent chairmanship of Sir Robert Balchin, who published his report in the autumn of 2007. Clearly, the view is, "If you want an important job done, ask a Conservative Member of this House."

The statistics on speech, language and communication needs among children are stark. In 2007, about 7 per cent. of five-year-olds entering primary school across England—that represents nearly 40,000 children—had significant difficulties with speech and/or language, but in more disadvantaged areas, about 50 per cent. of children and young people had speech and language skills of a significantly lower level than those of other children of the same age. My hon. Friend Mr. Hurd has mentioned the alarming figures for those in the youth justice system who have had difficulties with speech, language and communication. Clearly, we are missing a trick by not investing in prevention in that regard.

We all welcome the acknowledgement in the review that early intervention is key; many Members have mentioned that, including Hilary Armstrong. Too many children suffer from a postcode lottery in the provision of services, and there is still a shortage of specialist providers. As I pointed out in the Westminster Hall debate held just after the review was launched, we need

"greater joined-up working between education and health, and on the joint working and ownership of the work force, because speech and language therapists might be employed by health services, local authorities, schools, charities or social enterprises, or might be working privately."—[ Hansard, Westminster Hall, 9 October 2007; Vol. 464, c. 17WH.]

There is a vicious triangle at work. Often, people who come to my surgery with cases in which speech therapy support is required have already gone to their education authority, which has said, "Oh, that is not for us. It is for health." They then go to their primary care trust or hospital and are told again, "Oh no, that is not for us, but for children's or social services." I am sure that other hon. Members have experienced that, too. That is what I call a vicious triangle. The problem does not go away if we pass the buck. The longer we pass the buck, the bigger the problem with that child might become. We need much better joined-up working.

The DCSF and the Department of Health's joint response to the review is encouraging, and it was good to see the Secretaries of State for both Departments here earlier in this debate. It is essential that schools, health services, health visitors, children's centres, Sure Start and others do more to identify children with speech, language and communication difficulties as early as possible. As we identified in our submission to the review, when it comes to speech, language and communication needs, as with most areas of special education, early intervention is essential. Estimates suggest that some 15 per cent. of children at pre-school level need the early intervention of a speech and language therapist. The work done with those very young children is vital, and can in many cases be relatively short-lived and totally successful.

In most cases, there seems to be good co-operation between the agencies involved pre-school, and we support the proposal that more work be done through children's centres—an approach being pioneered by the charity I CAN. However, too many parents have reported encountering substantial difficulties with school-related assessment and provision. In particular, they mention two important problems. First, when children at pre-school level are identified as needing help, adequate speech and language therapy assistance is often not available. Secondly, when no identification has been possible pre-school, assessment and help is often difficult to obtain and slow in coming. There is also a problem with the transition between primary and secondary schools.

Research by Scope revealed that only 22 per cent. of respondents to its survey had been assessed by the age of three, and that local authorities had markedly different policies for the provision of communication aids. About a quarter of respondents did not receive an assessment until they were 16 or older. As a Scope report went on to show, if disabled children and young people are unable to develop their communication skills during childhood, it puts them at a significant disadvantage in adult life. It makes it even more likely that disabled people with communication impairments will be excluded from work, education and social opportunities, and will be unnecessarily dependent on others. Action must be meaningful and sustainable, and there must be follow-up assessments and ongoing monitoring. Not providing that, and not intervening early, is clearly a false economy, as hon. Members on both sides of the House have agreed.

I should like to mention a point to which Mrs. Hodgson referred. She has done much on the issue, and I congratulate her on her Bill receiving Royal Assent today. The excellent autism charity, TreeHouse, has called for a proper cost-benefit analysis of effective interventions, and we support that call. It believes that there is a need for an evidence base that details the impact of speech and language therapy on the development of children's communication and language skills, and that helps families to ascertain which interventions work best. TreeHouse makes the important point that parents and carers are the experts on their children, and need to be listened to and supported more. That suggestion was supported by I CAN, which played an important part in the review. Its excellent "Make Chatter Matter" campaign helped to put the issue on the political map in the first place. I am pleased that many of its suggestions have been taken up.

On speech and language therapy training, there is some evidence that although an adequate number of speech and language therapists are being trained, there are not enough posts available for them. They therefore seek other employment and can often be lost to the profession, which is an obvious waste of resources. That disjunction is likely to be remedied if recommendations on assessment and funding are accepted.

We believe that the Government need to go further on some aspects of the report, particularly on statementing and special schools. Where there are serious language disorders, or where language problems are part of a child's wider spectrum of special needs, parents too often find that the statementing process is too adversarial and drawn out. In too many cases, after considerable expenditure of time and money, it results in little or no help for their children. We believe that the system needs to be streamlined and made easier for parents to navigate and less adversarial.

The whole special needs profile system needs to be changed. We recommend that assessment for all special educational needs be undertaken by independent professionals in contracted consortiums, working to objective criteria. The process would be triggered by a professional from education, health or social services, or by a parent assisted by one of the above, and would result in a special needs profile replacing a statement. The profile would be based on clearly defined support categories, and speech, language and communication needs are likely to encompass one or more of those categories.

We believe that the ideology of inclusion has caused the most serious problems for special needs children and their parents. The loss in the past few years of no fewer than 9,000 special schools places is a disaster that must be remedied. Many children with complex speech, language and communication needs cannot be educated adequately in mainstream schools, but it is clear that those with less complicated needs can thrive in mainstream schools if there is a dedicated unit, staffed by an adequate number of professionals. It is also useful if all staff receive some training on SLCN problems. Will the Minister commit to a moratorium on the closure of special schools, at least until we can get a closer idea about current SEN provision, particularly as it relates to SLCN?

Most of all, I agree with the point made by Mr. Blunkett. We welcome the proposals for giving greater support to parents. Evidence suggests that many parents of children with SLCN feel too often that they have been left without much understanding of their child's needs and how they can assist.

The report is a good one. We congratulate the Government on commissioning it, and hope that they will enact its recommendations as soon as possible.

Kevin Brennan (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Children, Schools and Families; Cardiff West, Labour)

In the brief time left, I shall attempt to respond to some of the points raised by hon. Members. I welcome the speech made by John Bercow and once again congratulate him on the report. He made a number of points. I understand perfectly the one that he made about help with communicative devices; we will consider that issue as part of the child health strategy in the autumn. He pointed out the much wider relevance of the issue to antisocial behaviour, public health and the economy.

At the end, the hon. Gentleman said that he would die happy if his report were implemented, although he does not want to die just yet. I hope that he does not, because in 18 months we would like him to have a look at how we have done and whether we have implemented his review's recommendations. We are happy to invite him to do that if he is willing.

John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for making that request. I would be delighted to do that, with support from colleagues and outside experts.

English is an additional language for 75 per cent. of children at Churchill Gardens community primary school, and 55 per cent. of the children there are on free school meals. Is it not a terrific tribute to the school that, through great leadership, a language-rich environment and a powerful focus on communication, it is getting terrific results? That just shows what can be done in a mainstream school with good leadership.

Kevin Brennan (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Children, Schools and Families; Cardiff West, Labour)

Indeed it does. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his ingenuity in getting that point in.

My right hon. Friend Hilary Armstrong has a long-standing commitment on this issue, and she spoke with passion. She was one of the early adopters of early intervention as a means of trying to bring about social justice and change society. She gave us examples of good practice and the consequences of not identifying problems and intervening early.

Annette Brooke told us about the importance of specialist services and the problem of buck passing between health and education. I hope that she welcomed the commitment from the Secretaries of State for Health and for Children, Schools and Families, who were here today; the report was commissioned jointly.

I congratulate my hon. Friend Mrs. Hodgson, as her Bill has received Royal Assent. She is common sense on legs and her speeches in the House often bring us down to earth with practical and real-world examples of the consequences of our debates. She pointed out the importance of knowing the costs and benefits of early intervention and showed us how thoroughly she digested the content of the report; she will hold us to account in making sure that we implement it. She referred to her personal experience and her son Joseph and said that we needed more consistency across the country in the provision of these services. She asked specifically whether the report covered deaf and hard-of-hearing children. The answer is yes.

Mr. Hurd pointed out the increased investment that there has been into the education of young offenders. He went on to make a serious point about the importance of making sure that young offenders in custody get the appropriate support. However, it is also important that we meet their needs holistically, and the hon. Gentleman was churlish and unfair to suggest that there was apathy about that in the Government; after all, we are here debating this issue because we commissioned the report. We will address those issues through the youth crime action plan. It is better to address all, not just some, of young offenders' needs. In its forthcoming offender health strategy, the Department of Health will also consider the speech and language needs of young offenders.

In a disappointingly partisan contribution, Mr. Carswell gave us a glimpse of what is behind the veil of Cameronism when it is pulled aside; no doubt we shall see more of that in time. Tim Loughton made a rather partisan opening to impress his Whips, but he quickly moved on. However, I do not know how he can believe that not allowing children with speech and language difficulties an appeal against exclusion from school will help them; perhaps he will advise the House. However, he went on to discuss more substantial issues and I welcome his welcome of the commitment of the Secretaries of State, who were both here today.

Time is very short. Being able to communicate is absolutely fundamental, and we are glad to welcome the report.

It being one and a half hours after the commencement of the proceedings, the motion lapsed, without Question put, pursuant to the Temporary Standing Order (Topical debates).