My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to discuss further issues related to SEND on this Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, said, some of the individual examples and stories were quite harrowing. It is an issue that the Government
take very seriously and, through the process of the SEND Green Paper, are committed to improving. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, my noble friend Lord Holmes and others that this Government are just as ambitious for children and young people with SEND as for every other child and young person.
Amendment 97 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, highlights the importance of local authorities providing specialist educational support services for children and young people with sensory impairments, and there being sufficient funding to do so. As we have heard, local authorities have existing duties to ensure that appropriate support is available to meet their needs. To enable them to do this, they have flexibility on how they use high-needs funding, including to support those with sensory impairments. The budget has increased by £1 billion this year to a total of £9.1 billion. In a number of contributions, we heard about the pressures on the high-needs budget. This is something that the Government acknowledge and have tried to take action to improve. We have seen unprecedented increases in high needs funding. The SEND and alternative provision Green Paper proposals for changes are also intended to establish an improved system that is financially sustainable, as well as securing better outcomes for children and young people. We are really clear on the need to do that.
Within the current system, Ofsted and the CQC report that some areas, such as Barnsley and Hounslow, are highly successful in offering good provision for children and young people with sensory impairments. We want to spread good practice such as this to all areas and, as several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Storey, referred to, remove the postcode lottery that can be associated with special needs. That is why we are consulting on introducing national SEND standards as part of our Green Paper.
Amendment 99 from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, proposes a new requirement that all local authority “children not in school” registers must include information about any special educational need or disability that child may have. I know that we will speak in much more detail later in Committee about those registers, but I assure noble Lords that we plan to legislate via regulation to require local authorities to record information about any special educational needs and disabilities a child may have within their register.
Turning to the amendments from my noble friend Lord Holmes, Amendment 163 seeks clarity on the Government’s plan to improve outcomes for pupils with SEND and report on those pupils’ attainment in key examinations. The Government have plans to reduce the attainment gap and improve the SEND system in, as I said, both the SEND and alternative provision Green Paper and the schools White Paper. Taken together, these papers contain ambitious proposals to improve outcomes. Regarding my noble friend’s point on data, the Government already publish information on the attainment levels of children and young people with SEN.
I share my noble friend’s view, set out in Amendment 164, of the importance of ensuring that all students eligible for disabled students’ allowance are made aware of it. That is why existing legislation
already requires local authorities to publish information about disabled students’ allowance in their local offer, which must be accessible to all those with SEND and their families. In addition, the Student Loans Company provides information about student finance to schools and colleges, actively engages with higher education providers about student finance, including disabled students’ allowance, and supports higher education institutions to publicise it through events.
On Amendment 165, on every child having access to the support they need and the role that the right documentation can play in this, which the Government would acknowledge, children and young people who require them will receive EHC plans, which are statutory documents describing their needs, and the educational, health and social care provision required to meet those needs. Mainstream schools may, when complying with their existing statutory requirement to deploy their “best endeavours” to secure special educational provision for children and young people with SEN, use appropriate documentation to do so.
Finally, my noble friend’s Amendment 166 would require the department to consult academics, including those who subscribe to the social model of disability. I assure him that one of the key principles underpinning the SEND system is the social model of disability. Where a child or young person needs additional support to access education, their educational setting must put in place appropriate support. The nature of that support is not contingent on any particular diagnosis.
Finally, Amendment 171V in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, would require schools to follow medical advice provided by a pupil’s doctor. I assure the noble Baroness that the Government are committed to supporting pupils with medical conditions at school. That is why we already set expectations that schools consider the advice of healthcare professionals.
6.30 pm
The department’s statutory guidance on supporting pupils with medical conditions at school is clear that school staff, healthcare professionals and parents should work together to agree the support that a child needs in school to effectively manage their condition and take the best approach. That includes fully considering the advice of healthcare professionals, including doctors. It might be valuable, if the noble Baroness is amenable, to have a meeting to discuss some of the specific examples that she has raised. We believe the position in the guidance is quite clear that the needs of these children must be met, and it would be useful to talk through some of the specifics where the noble Baroness thinks that might not be happening.
As all noble Lords have said, the amendments in this group highlight the importance of supporting children and young people with SEND or additional health needs to thrive, but we know that many parts of the SEND system are not working as well as they should. That is why we set out in the recent SEND and alternative provision Green Paper ambitious proposals to improve the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND. They include a proposal to legislate for national standards for SEND and alternative provision. Such standards would make provision, processes and systems consistent across the
country, which is a theme that we have heard. We encourage everyone to reflect on and respond to the consultation, which is open until 22 July.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, that I do not think the timescales for that piece of work align with our ability to amend this piece of legislation with it, but it is our intention to bring forward legislation to provide for the proposals in the Green Paper. In the meantime there are other proposals that we might come on to, such as the children not in schools register, which have been subject to extensive consultation and work, that we want to take forward while also taking forward the work on the Green Paper in the appropriate way.
The Government completely accept the importance of these issues and the desire to improve outcomes for these children and consistency across the country. That is what I hope the proposals that we have set out will do. For now, I hope the noble Lord feels able to withdraw his amendment.