HL Deb 02 March 2005 vol 670 cc310-4

7.50 p.m.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton

rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 9 February be approved.

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am delighted to take forward this important legislation. It represents a positive step forward in fulfilling the Government's policy on inclusion, giving children, young people and adults with disabilities in Northern Ireland the same rights as their counterparts in England, Scotland and Wales.

The order will achieve two things: it will strengthen the rights of children with special educational needs to be educated in mainstream schools, and it will introduce enforceable disability discrimination legislation into the education sector in Northern Ireland for the first time.

The draft order was the subject of extensive consultation during April, May and June 2004. It attracted significant interest, with more than 250 responses received, and involved direct consultations with children and parents. In May last year, the Northern Ireland Orders Grand Committee debated the proposed draft order. That important debate, along with the consultation responses, the direct consultation with children and parents, and meetings with the Equality Commission and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, has helped to shape the draft order. The outcome is that the SEND order is generally welcomed by all sectors. It is viewed as having a beneficial effect on the education and lives of children with special educational needs and on children and adults with disabilities.

Many of the issues that were raised during the consultation are not directly relevant to the draft order, but they are appropriate to the codes of practice which will support the order and which, in turn, will be consulted on. Some complex issues were raised: how to balance the best interests of the child against parental choice and the efficient education of others. It is tempting to add a third test to the question of whether the education provision is in the child's interests. We agonised for some time over the question of the best interests of the child. We sought advice from many quarters and listened to proposals from the Equality Commission and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. On reflection, we concluded that applying a third test would not be in the interests of children with special educational needs. The order already has the best interests of the child at heart. It already offers in many places the protection that is needed. To alter that protection in a simplistic way could have a negative effect. In fact, it could act as a barrier to children with special educational needs accessing mainstream education.

A concern was expressed from all sectors that children's voices should be heard, and we agree. That is no less the case for a child with special educational needs, particularly so when a case is brought before the special needs tribunal. Therefore, the regulations that control that body will be revised. In addition, the SEN code of practice will place greater emphasis on the needs of the child.

The order contains four elements: it builds on and strengthens our existing special educational needs framework; it introduces enforceable disability discrimination legislation in schools in Northern Ireland; it does the same for further and higher education providers; and it makes it unlawful for general qualifications bodies to discriminate on the ground of disability.

The second element, the disability discrimination provision in schools, removes the exemption of the education sector in Northern Ireland from the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. For the first time, school children in Northern Ireland will benefit from the same rights that, until now, have been available only to staff and visitors to schools. Schools will not be able in their admission, expulsion and suspension arrangements to discriminate against children who have disabilities. They will have to take reasonable steps to ensure that children who have a disability are not placed at a disadvantage to other children. Schools and education and library boards too will have additional duties to improve the accessibility of buildings, the curriculum and the provision of information to pupils with disability.

Disability discrimination provisions relate also to further and higher education. The third element of the order deals with potential disability discrimination in institutions of further and higher education. The Department for Employment and Learning is seeking to promote the inclusion of students with disability in further and higher education and will ensure that they are not singled out for discrimination.

While schools will be required to plan to enhance accessibility for pupils with disabilities over time, colleges and universities will have a duty to ensure the physical accessibility of their premises and to ensure that students with disabilities have access to the curriculum. As with schools, those provisions will be supplemented by a code of practice to he produced by the Equality Commission, which will also provide further information.

The disability discrimination provision relates also to the general qualifications bodies. That is the fourth element of the order. It makes it unlawful for general qualifications bodies to discriminate against people with disabilities in awarding prescribed qualifications.

I am pleased to announce funding from the Department of Education and the Department for Employment and Learning of £57.8 million for the implementation of the new law. That is in addition to funds already spent in anticipation of the legislation and funds already in place to support the inclusion of people with special educational needs and disabilities in education in Northern Ireland.

I am conscious that the noble Lord, Lord Laird, raised an issue during discussion of an earlier order which is more appropriately answered here. It dealt with special provision for children in Northern Ireland with disability. I understand that the centre to which he referred deals with children who have problems with autism. I assure the noble Lord that I will scrutinise carefully the large number of questions that he has put to my noble friend the Lord President and see whether any of the points he has raised today have not already been answered by her. Were that to be the case, I would of course write to him. I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 9 February be approved.—(Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton.)

8 p.m.

Lord Glentoran

My Lords, I again thank the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, for that clear explanation.

We are being asked to pass a sizeable Bill as an order tonight. My briefing discussions and what the noble Baroness has told us makes me believe that it is all good news for children who have special educational needs. I am sure that is true, and that it is moving things forward in Northern Ireland.

I am not an expert in this field, however, and this is the sort of thing that worries me about the way we are governing Northern Ireland. A lot of law is involved and there are many references to discrimination. These issues are normally debated in the usual processes of Committee and Report, when a number of people in your Lordships' House—and there is a lot of expertise in this House or this sort of legislation—or the other place, or both, have a chance to comment on whether the legislation could be improved, and whether it will make carers or teachers more vulnerable to wrongdoing.

I shall not say anything further against the order. I support it, because I believe it is all good news on the face of it. However, the process of passing this sort of legislation does seriously worry me.

Baroness Harris of Richmond

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington of Ribbleton, urged us to look at striking a balance and getting it right. I believe that these proposals go some way towards that, but of course each situation is different. The implementation needs to be carefully monitored. It obviously depends on the individual child's specific and special educational needs. Let us hope that this legislation will help those with and without statements, as well as other children, to realise their full potential.

Of course, I wholeheartedly support the objective of the order—to give school pupils and students in Northern Ireland the same rights in regard to access to schools and further and higher education institutions as exists in England, Scotland and Wales. While I do not share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, about this particular order, I nevertheless agree with him about the difficulty in dealing with such lengthy and specific legislation, on which we are perhaps not specialists ourselves. Nevertheless, having made those comments earlier—as did my noble friend Lord Smith of Clifton—I certainly support this order.

Baroness Blood

My Lords, I had not intended to speak. I just want to say how delighted I am that at last we have got something for the children of Northern Ireland. Back in Northern Ireland, we struggled to get ourselves included in the legislation going through this House. Currently there are a number of issues I am trying to get our Ministers at home to move on, so I am thoroughly delighted with this. I was at a meeting on Monday morning with folk from south-east Belfast who were talking about special needs. They could not wait to have this.

I certainly support the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. It is a very difficult just to take it and read it. Obviously, however, the people involved in this knew what they were talking about. I am delighted that we are doing something tonight for the children of Northern Ireland.

Lord Laird

My Lords, while acknowledging the words of the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blood, and accepting that it is a very lengthy document and there may be a lot of stuff in it that we perhaps do not fully understand, I too would wish to welcome the existence of this order and support it wholeheartedly.

Any concerns I have about the Centre for Excellence in Middletown have nothing whatsoever to do with the Centre for Excellence. They are to do with the choice of Middletown; the way the property was purchased; the way the two companies were set up; the way it is run through the North/South Ministerial Council;, and the expression of nervousness in a document from the Department of Education on 21 May 2004.

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton

My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have given their support. I take on board the concern that it is the sort of issue that needs very careful consideration. I reiterate that there was a great deal of consultation.

I am pleased by the endorsement of the order by my noble friend Lady Blood. Of course I wholeheartedly accept that the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Laird, were not about the quality of the provision for children with autism, but the procedure and the processes.

On Question, Motion agreed to.