§ LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEYMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are going to set up a Committee of Inquiry into special education for handicapped children.
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD BELSTEAD)My Lords, the Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children has a general responsibility to advise my right honourable friend on special educational treatment. In addition, committees of inquiry are set up to keep educational provision for handicapped children under continuing review.
§ LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEYMy Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his right honourable friend the Prime Minister, on July 22, 1968, pledged a future Conservative Government to set up a special inquiry into this field of education? Does he regard the routine Committee which is sitting at the moment as a special inquiry, and is he aware that a number of bodies, including a leader in The Times Educational Supplement, are asking for a complete review of the whole of this field?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, I am aware of the letter of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, written in 1968. I think many noble Lords will agree that the field of special education is a diverse one and needs diverse approaches. There is also the question of duplicating existing research. For those reasons, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State believes that the Prime Minister's pledge is best redeemed by the work of the Advisory Committee on Handicapped Children, whose Chairman is Professor Tizard, and by other work of inquiry carried out by the Department of Education and Science, including a joint Working Party, which has now been set up by the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Social Security and the Department of Employment.
§ LORD SHEPHERDMy Lords, would the noble Lord tell us when this committee under Professor Tizard was in fact set up?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, the committee was set up in 1945.
§ LORD SHEPHERDMy Lords, in the light of the Prime Minister's pledge to set up a special inquiry—and at the time of that pledge he must surely have known of the existence of this particular cornmittee—is it not very strange that the Prime Minister cannot honour this particular pledge?
§ LORD BELSTEADNo, my Lords, it is not strange. The pledge is being honoured in the way I have described to the House.
§ LORD BURNTWOODMy Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he thinks that the Advisory Committee is sufficiently conscious of the great gap in the 1136 knowledge of the public about the problems confronting not only the educationists but the handicapped children themselves in the matter of education? Is he aware of the fact, for instance, that voluntary effort towards assisting educators or advisers in the matter of mental illness has made a great deal of progress but that there is no such equivalent progress in the matter of mentally handicapped children?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the way in which he has put his question. I think it might be helpful to the noble Lord if I were allowed to write to him, but perhaps he would like to know now that, in addition to the general current activity of the Advisory Committee, this year has seen the finishing of the work of the Vernon Committee on the Blind and the Partially Sighted and of the Quirk Committee on Speech Therapists; that there is a small sub-committee of the Advisory Committee which has reported on dyslexia, and that the Advisory Committee is considering the matter of categories—and so the work goes on. But if I may put that in full in a letter to the noble Lord, I should be grateful.
§ LORD BURNTWOODMy Lords, I thank the Minister for that kind offer, which I gratefully accept. My own feeling in the matter of mentally handicapped children and their problems is that the public as a whole tend to sweep the matter under the carpet.
§ LORD SEGALMy Lords, would the noble Lord not think that a continuous inquiry is desirable, in view of the constant progress which is being made in this field?
§ LORD BELSTEADMy Lords, I take anything that the noble Lord says seriously. If the noble Lord would like to draw my right honourable friend's attention to particular aspects of special education in this way, I assure the noble Lord that it will be considered with the greatest seriousness. But, meanwhile, I think I must stand by my original reply. There seems to me to be one particular difficulty: a diverse field requires diverse and different approaches, and it is perhaps this reason most of all which makes us feel that the present arrangements are the most effective.
§ LORD DAVIES OF LEEKMy Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for the extended answers which he has given, may I ask him whether he is aware that the time has come when the Government themselves, whatever their nature may be, would probably benefit if they were prepared to put out a Consultative Document on handicapped children, specifically because much knowledge has now been accumulated which I am sure all noble Lords and Members of the other place would like to know about and which would afford knowledge for the Government?
§ LORD BELSTEADYes, my Lords. At the moment we have in mind a circular, for instance on children in hospitals; advice which, after consideration, we should like to give on children who are handicapped but are or would wish to be in ordinary schools. None the less, I shall draw my right honourable friend's attention to the general point made by the noble Lord.
§ LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEYMy Lords, does the noble Lord not think that, just as an Advisory Committee set up 25 years ago is no substitute for a special inquiry, so a circular is no substitute for the kind of Consultative Document, or indeed full Report, which would really inform the public in this country of the situation in this matter?
§ LORD BELSTEADNo, my Lords. I appreciate the noble Lord's concern in this matter, but I do not agree with what the noble Lord is saying.