Children (Special Needs) (Hansard, 19 April 1988)

§ 9. Mr. Amess
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on his Department's provision for those children assessed as having special needs.

§ Mr. Dunn
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced last November that the Government would be providing for local education authorities to spend nearly £13.9 billion on education in 1988–89. Within this figure a sum is being provided for special schools. It is for local education authorities to determine whether children have special educational needs and to secure appropriate provision for them within the terms of the Education Act 1981.

§ Mr. Amess
Does my hon. Friend recognise the anxiety felt by some parents, who believe that their children are not making the sort of progress at school that they would have hoped and that local education authorities also take some time to recognise that fact? Does he agree that provisions in the Education Reform Bill requiring testing will mean that assessment of and assistance for children with special educational needs will be given more quickly?

§ Mr. Dunn
I understand my hon. Friend's point. Useful pointers may be derived from the way in which a child performs as a result of the application of the national curriculum. Thus, the national curriculum may provide a long stop in the identification of specific learning difficulties.

§ Mr. Janner
Does the Minister accept that the Department of Education and Science and local education authorities do not have the power to provide children with the special need which many of them require most, which is physiotherapy, and that the Department of Health and Social Security has to be brought in for schools such as the Western Park school in my constituency, where some 50 children need physiotherapy and have the use of one physiotherapist for one hour each week? Is that not a disgrace?

§ Mr. Dunn
The hon. and learned Gentleman will be pleased to know that all local education authorities are now operating the procedures introduced by the Education Act 1981. He rightly draws attention to a specific concern, but he knows that the employment of physiotherapists is not a matter directly for my Department.

§ Mrs. Ann Winterton
Will my hon. Friend allay the fears of the parents of deaf children and give an assurance that the special needs of their children will be fully met by the proposals in the Education Reform Bill?

§ Mr. Dunn
We shall be asking for and taking advice from a variety of working groups on children with special needs. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the needs of children who suffer from deafness in one form or another.

§ Mr. Fatchett
Is the Minister aware of the excellent work carried out by the Inner London education authority for children with special educational needs? Is he also aware that last week parents in ILEA expressed overwhelmingly their satisfaction with the authority and their desire that it should continue? Is it the Government's policy to listen to parents only when they say what the Government want? Will they just ignore the strong wishes of Inner London parents?

§ Mr. Dunn
The hon. Member is incorrect when he says that the ballot last week was of all Inner London education authority parents. It was not. I have every confidence that the London boroughs will continue to provide for children with special educational needs in the future when they become education authorities in their own right.