Clause 1 - purpose and interpretation of chapter 1
Education Bill
12:30 pm
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest, Conservative)
My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West has already spoken to the amendment tabled in his name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury, and I do not wish to waste the Committee's time in reiterating his points. I would like to probe a little further on amendments Nos. 75 and 76, which were eloquently presented by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough. I would not necessarily have suggested that the matters referred to in amendments Nos. 75 and 76 should appear at the beginning of the Bill, but as the hon. Gentleman has made that suggestion, I would like the Minister's assurance that special educational needs and child care appear at the beginning of the Government's draft of the Bill. If they are not, I would not take it as an indication from the Minister that those are not considered extremely important subjects. They are indeed extremely important and the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough is right to have raised them at this point in our deliberations.
Amendment No. 75 deals with child care. Will the Minister assure us that the Government do not consider child care to be merely some sort of by-product--an added extra--of education? Does he agree that the care of small children is the beginning of their education? Thankfully, in most families the duties of early child care and, therefore, the beginnings of education are undertaken by parents or grandparents, in the community or in the family. However, families in some areas of the country are less fortunate and, in those cases, providing early years care and therefore education gives small children the best start in life.
I appreciate the comments of the hon. Member for Don Valley. She is chairman of the all-party child care group, of which I am vice-chairman. That does not mean that we entirely agree on all of the issues, but I know that she gives this matter high priority—indeed, she said as much this morning—and so do I.
I seek the Minister's assurance that we are not to assume that the Government do not give the matter high priority simply because it does not appear near
the beginning of the Bill. I look forward to examining the issue later in part 9. I hope that we will have more time then to explore the Government's plans.
Likewise, I wish to probe further on amendment No. 76, which also was eloquently proposed by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough. The issue of special educational needs is not being handled properly and is causing chaos in some parts of the country. Some education authorities simply cannot cope with requests for statementing. Many families cannot deal with the long wait between requesting a statement for a child and the exploration and granting of one.
The theory of inclusion for children with special educational needs works well in some cases, but is a complete disaster in others. Recently, special educational needs has been seen as a single problem, but it is far from that. There is an enormous range of needs. A slight inability to read because of dyslexia, for example, is simple to deal with by inclusion in the main stream. A child may need an extra hour or so each week or some minor assistance. However, at the other end of the spectrum are conditions such as Asperger's syndrome, which is serious and often not detected until a child is past the age at which something might be done to help him or her. To suggest that small children with Asperger's syndrome should be treated in the same way as children with mild dyslexia, by inclusion in the main stream, is to treat the problem as less serious than it is. It is an increasingly serious problem.
Inclusion does not always work, and the disruption of mainstream classrooms by children with serious problems that should be dealt with in another way is becoming a problem. Let us make no bones about it: the education of other children in classes in which children with severe learning difficulties are included is being affected.
The amendment contains many implications for the budgets of schools and LEAs, and for the work loads of teachers and teaching and care assistants. Most importantly, there are enormous implications for the foundation of children's learning ability. I shall not take up more of the Committee's time on the issue now, but I hope that we will have plenty of time to discuss it in parts 6 and 10 of the Bill in a few weeks' time. I seek the Minister's assurance that, just because the Government have not put special needs in the first clause of the Bill, it does not mean that they do not give the issue high priority.