Children with Disabilities

11:00:00

Mrs. Joan Humble (Blackpool, North and Fleetwood) (Lab)
It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak on this important issue. I want to concentrate on the report that I, my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) and hon. Members from all political parties have produced, with support from a consortium of children’s charities: Children Now, Contact A Family, the Council for Disabled Children, Mencap and the Special Education Consortium.

The background to our report and to the debate is that the Treasury and the Department for Education and Skills asked us to provide a report that would feed into the 2007 comprehensive spending review. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor had previously announced that the CSR would include a review to consider

“how services can provide greater support to families with disabled children to improve their life chances”.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill and I convened a series of parliamentary hearings to support the Treasury/DFES review. In July, we held hearings that focused on uncovering evidence of good practice and on finding ways to improve the outcomes and life chances of poor disabled children. The report from the hearings will feed into the review and, I hope, provide solutions to the challenges of improving services for those young people and their families.

A cross-party group of about 20 MPs took part in the hearings, which covered three areas: early years support, family support in children’s services and the transition to adulthood. The hearings were well publicised by the consortium of charities, and Children Now produced a flyer. On the back there is a list of vital statistics, some of which are repeated regularly. It is worth repeating them again, however, so that we understand what we are talking about. There are 770,000 children with disabilities in the UK; over 90 per cent. of disabled children live at home and are supported by their families; only one in 13 families receives services from their local social services; disabled children are 13 times more likely to be excluded from school; and, sadly, eight out of 10 families with disabled children are at breaking point.

One quarter of those families say that services are poor or lack co-ordination. In fact, when we undertook our inquiry one deeply disturbing statistic that we found was that not only did over 80 per cent. of families believe that they receive poor services, but over 80 per cent. of professionals believed that they delivered poor services. Clearly, there are issues that we must address, and our hearings considered them in detail.

Lest the Minister become concerned that I am being too negative, we also recognise that the Government have made substantial progress: £13 million has been provided to fund the early support programme, £27 million has been announced for children’s hospices, and the Department of Health and DFES children’s national service framework has a specific standard for disabled children. It says:

“Children and young people who are disabled or who have complex health needs should receive co-ordinated, high-quality child and family-centred services which are based on assessed needs, which promote social inclusion and, where possible, which enable them and their families to live ordinary lives.”

We applaud that.

Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Con)
I, too, congratulate the Government on their work, particularly the provision to the children’s hospices of £27 million, which has now been divided among them for the next three years. However, will the Minister bear in mind the need to provide a fair funding formula, and the need for the Department of Health to work with the Association of Children’s Hospices to establish that formula for the long term?

Mrs. Humble
I am sure that the Minister has heard the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. Indeed, there is an excellent children’s hospice, Brian House, in Blackpool. I visit it regularly and I see the amazing work of its staff, so I agree that children’s hospices do an excellent job and I applaud the Government’s provision of additional money.

The Prime Minister’s strategy unit report, “Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People”, also prioritised early years service and the transition to adulthood. Most recently, “Opportunity for All”, the eighth annual report from the Department for Work and Pensions, said:

“The way in which services are designed and delivered to support disabled children and their families in the early years has a huge impact on disabled young people’s prospects and expectations as they become adults. This has repercussions for the whole family, including the parents’ ability to care for their children and participate in education, training and employment. We have made progress by developing a programme of work that will:”.

The report then lists the elements of that programme, but I shall not take time by listing them now. DWP is also part of a cross-departmental focus on services for children with disabilities and their families.

I shall make some comments about the importance of key working, which we highlight in our report. Initially, however, I shall outline the report’s priority recommendations. The first and by far the most important recommendation is that significant additional resources should be targeted at disabled children and their families, and that they should be made available to planners and commissioners of universal and specialist services. Secondly, additional funding should be linked to the development of minimum standards or to a “core offer” for disabled children and families, creating a universal entitlement to a minimum level of service. Thirdly, Ministers should ensure that services for disabled children are part of every local agreement, and that national public service agreement targets are developed for disabled children. We make a series of recommendations, and I advise Members who have not done so to look at our summer report, which goes through them.

I should like to speak at length to many other recommendations, including the development of advocacy services; however, from our public inquiry, which incorporated three evidence sessions, there came powerful evidence of good practice in the use of key workers on the early support programme, and powerful evidence of how difficult life was for parents if they had to negotiate a variety of agencies all by themselves. One parent told us of her frustration. She said that rather than concentrating on caring for her son:

“I am practically full-time learning how the ‘system’ works and researching and implementing all my own interventions—even after pouring hours over months into trying to locate suitable education for my son! So far I have plenty of people telling me what to do, but no one helping me to do any of it.”

Sharon Kelly, a mother who gave evidence at our first session, said:

“Since Early Support got involved with us, there has been a dramatic change in our family. My daughter is no longer a jigsaw puzzle with twenty-one different pieces. My daughter is Alysha and twenty-one people are there at the end of a phone through one person.”

Coincidentally, the early support pilot in my constituency has concentrated on mainstreaming the principle of early support.

As well as visiting projects in Manchester during the summer with my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, talking with early support practitioners in Salford and visiting Tower Hamlets, I met Janet Berry, the co-ordinator of my local child development centre in Blackpool, and a group of parents and children. It was clear that the parents welcomed key workers into their lives as single individuals who could help them to co-ordinate services, but it was also clear in my discussions with professionals that key working necessitated major training for the staff of the different agencies involved and meant introducing new literature for parents and new material for training sessions. All that costs money. It does not happen by magic. Blackpool is fortunate to have been one of the pilot areas, so it can use that money to develop key working. When we spoke to key workers in Salford, we saw that additional resources had to be put into the system to develop it. If key working is to be mainstream, the Government will have to consider what additional resources are needed to co-ordinate that excellent service.

In the introduction to the August 2006 report of the Blackpool early support pathfinder, Janet Berry says:

“In times of change, there are fantastic opportunities, and I believe the Early Support materials, principles and processes are a gift to local authorities and partners from the health and voluntary sectors. As always with gifts, we only enjoy and benefit from them when they are opened and explored. As a pathfinder, Blackpool has been able to do just that. We have been able to open the gift and begin to explore the benefits. However, it is important to recognise that Early Support provides the foundations and the tools to build a service surrounding the child and family that is fully co-ordinated and integrated, but it takes the skills and the commitment of leaders and professionals from education, social care, health and the voluntary sector to work creatively in partnership to realise that vision.”

I want that vision to be translated all over the country. We are developing it in Blackpool. Evidence for our review came from people who did not benefit from that vision and people who did.

I would like to speak about many other matters, but I know that other hon. Members want to speak, so I shall just refer to two essentials that have come out of our review: short breaks and appropriate services during the transition to adulthood. Short breaks are absolutely vital for families. Without them, they reach breaking point. Sadly, many local authorities are cutting back such services because of enormous budget pressures.

The full report of parliamentary hearings highlights demographic changes. More children born with severe disabilities now survive into childhood and indeed adulthood. Those demographic changes are putting pressure on health, education and social services to offer the support that such children and their families need and deserve. Short breaks are one of the key services that the families with whom I meet want more of. They want them regularly, and they want to know that they can rely on them to make their lives much easier.

Families also face pressures during the transition from childhood to adulthood. Most parents feel pressure when their children are small. As the children grow older and reach 18, they leave home to lead their own lives as adults. For families with disabled children, it is the exact opposite. At the stage when parents want to enjoy time to themselves, too many find that they are looking after their children more because the transition to adult services let them down. Services are not there, so parents are under enormous pressure. The Commission for Social Care Inspection will shortly produce a report on the matter, and I look forward to reading it.

The Government have many excellent policies, but sadly, as a result of demographic changes and financial pressures, services all too often simply do not exist. I hope that the Minister and his colleagues in other Departments will use our report’s detailed evidence to support their bid to the Treasury for more money, and that it will support them in developing the services that we all want for families with disabled children. A disabled child can both be a joy and bring pressures to the family. Our job as politicians is to do what we can to remove those pressures and to help the family. This is a key opportunity to do so. Every disabled child matters. That is our message. I finish by paraphrasing the children’s commissioner’s remark when we launched the report. He said that it was one report that should not be left to gather dust on a Minister’s shelf. I will not let that happen, I am sure that many of my colleagues in this place will not and I sincerely hope that the Minister will not.

Several hon. Members
rose—

Mr. Bill Olner (in the Chair)
Order. I am about to call another speaker, but four of you want to speak. Please have a little bit of self-discipline on timings, because I am sure that the Minister will want plenty of time to have a few words on this extremely important subject. I call Tom Clarke.

11:16:00

Mr. Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
It is an enormous pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble). She made a remarkable contribution to the review she mentioned, not just at committee sittings and parliamentary hearings, but during our visits to the Spark centre in Tower Hamlets and to the early support programme Salford, as well as in many other ways.

In an excellent speech, my hon. Friend outlined the thinking of the review’s cross-party membership extremely well, as one would expect. She referred to the children’s commissioner. She will know that I have just returned within the past few minutes from a meeting with him. She wisely declined an invitation to attend early this morning—she might well have been caught in traffic, in which case this debate would not have taken place—but she was there in spirit, and I thank her sincerely for her marvellous work.

Our report quoted the children’s commissioner. We heard a great deal of evidence from professionals, parents and many others, and the commissioner said that

“the plight of children and families with disabilities is nothing short of a national scandal”.

Those are strong words. Privately, some of my colleagues—not those who took part in the review—felt that they were. Like my hon. Friend, I do not want to sound at all negative. With the greatest respect to the ministerial team—we recognise the marvellous progress that has been made, although our responsibility is to identify what problems still exist—and speaking for myself alone, I think that I understand where the children’s commissioner is coming from, particularly after our meeting this morning.

The commissioner sees his job, and those who work for him see theirs, as a great challenge in the modern world. They feel a degree of frustration. They have an excellent relationship with the Department for Education and Skills, but they have nevertheless made it clear that they feel that their remit is considerably restricted. That applies to disabled children as well. They would prefer to report to Parliament itself rather than to one Department.

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner drew to my attention something fairly significant that must impact on disabled children in England particularly: it receives 30p per child. In Northern Ireland the amount is £3.80, in Wales it is £2.10 and in Scotland it is 90p. It would be unfair of me to complain too much about Scotland, but I do not believe, as we argue for more resources, that 30p per child in England is exactly appropriate. Therefore, I share the views of the children’s commissioner that we ought to address that issue, as well as the strong views that have been expressed. For example, children being in prison has been an issue of late, but the number of children with disabilities in prison, especially those with learning disabilities, is a challenge to us all. Therefore, if the commissioner sounded angry, there was certainly justification for that, and I have the feeling that my right hon. and hon. Friends will agree.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood referred rightly to demography, which was one of the biggest issues that we had to address. As she said, today there are 770,000 disabled children, which is an increase of 62 per cent. in the past 30 years. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) has often referred to the improvements that have been made in medical science, and of course we welcome that progress. Nevertheless, that increase in the population of disabled children does not come without problems. Those problems were identified in services, diagnosis, child care, gaps in data, early intervention, early support, and the impact of the benefits system. We made some important recommendations on those issues. The backdrop to all that—again, we were unanimous in this view—is our determination to eradicate poverty, especially poverty among children, and disabled children and their families in particular.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood referred rightly to the emphasis on short break provision and respite care. Even if we had not had our views on that before we came together in the review, the evidence that was submitted on the issue was extremely compelling. Three out of 10 written submissions from parents raised the matter unprompted. The issue clearly must be addressed. Parents, carers and others are absolutely dedicated, as we saw in our visits, but we simply cannot allow them to rely on that dedication without the support of respite care, for example. One evening a week would make the world of difference to people who, despite their love for their children, have taken on a task that by its very nature demands their attention 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and becomes extremely draining.

Some of the stories that we heard from parents were heartbreaking. All of them addressed the issue of resources. We also heard, rightly, from the Local Government Association. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said in the Budget statement that led to the review that he was dealing with the issue of resources for disabled children. I hope that our review will be helpful in addressing how those resources are directed. However, we all want to ensure that when resources are made available, they go to where we hope they will help to address the problems that people face and meet the needs that patently exist in virtually every part of the United Kingdom.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood rightly referred to the evidence that we heard on autism. I find it unacceptable that, for example, the time taken to diagnose autism varies up and down the country. Sometimes it takes many months and even years, but if people in that situation are fortunate, it might take only a matter of weeks. There ought to be a UK approach on such matters. Some people who suffer from autism or Asperger’s often experience bullying and other unacceptable antisocial behaviour, which is another reason why we must identify those issues quickly and have a strategy to respond to them.

My hon. Friend rightly referred to advocacy. Much as I am watching the clock, most people who know me would expect me briefly to say something about advocacy. Where we saw advocacy in action, it represented best practice. The case for advocacy is now overwhelming, not only in the interests of the child, which we all agree ought to be paramount, but in our attempt to deliver services nationally and locally. For example, one mother told us that, apart from coping with the trauma of finding that she had a disabled child, she had to deal with 21 different specialists during the first months. However, when a key worker arrived, he or she was able to deal with those 21 people and allow the mother to continue with her job of mothering in a difficult situation. We want to see more of that.

We recognise the role of the carers and we support early intervention. Indeed, our report made the specific recommendation that there should be a national centre for excellence in early intervention, because at that point we could anticipate and respond to many of the problems that would otherwise arise.

Apart from the many other issues that arose during our review, and to which my hon. Friend rightly referred, one of the biggest issues is the period of transition. Given my interest in disability over many years, I regret to say that we as a Parliament have not really addressed that issue to the extent that I would wish, however well meaning we might be. The transition period is the period after the educational system has fulfilled its responsibilities and when young people with learning disabilities find that their normal day is not their normal day any more. The bus does not come to collect them any more, and there is no school or training centre for them. That means enormous problems for both the child and their family. I do not wish to exaggerate the impact of such problems, but I very much regret the fact that, in some situations, some of those children find themselves in prison. That cannot be acceptable.

I conclude on this note. I reassure my hon. Friend the Minister that, although this debate is inevitably about problems and how we answer them, I do not ignore some of the positive aspects of society’s approach to disabled children and some of the Government’s achievements, which we of course acknowledge. Nevertheless, we still have a great deal to do at this point in the millennium. In earlier days, we acknowledged the work and commitment of people such as Shaftesbury and Barnardo; indeed, we saw the impact that Barnardo has even today. In view of the timing of this debate, just ahead of Christmas, I conclude by quoting Charles Dickens:

“In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice.”

If that applies to children in general, as it does, it is even more appropriate to disabled children. That is our challenge today.

11:29:00

Dr. Ian Gibson (Norwich, North) (Lab)
I am delighted to play a part in this debate, because at least I feel that there is an open door, in that the review has helped to open up the issue of disability in our society. There were many Ministers who came to the review—in fact, there were more Ministers at one stage than we sometimes see on the Front Bench during Prime Minister’s questions. There is so much interest, and the door is open. I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends for really leading the Committee’s review and taking it into pastures new. I was a bit player in that, but I could see that a review is often more important than a Select Committee. I congratulate them on taking that path to get things done. They have my support, and that of many others, as they press on to ensure that things happen.

It is often said that we can judge any society by how it treats its vulnerable people. That is true of what we are discussing. We are beginning to open up about and consider people who, sadly, are born with disabilities or acquire them during their lives. I am pleased to play a part locally in coaching disabled people in football; I must say that some of them are better than parliamentary team players whom I know.

The Olympic games are coming here in 2012, but we seem to have missed the fact that the Paralympics will be associated with them. On many days, the Paralympics in Greece were better attended than the Olympics. The world has huge interest in the Paralympics, and I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on bringing up the issue.

I turn to genetic disability. When I was much younger, we knew of about two or three conditions, associated with disability, for which there was a correlation with a gene that was sometimes, but not always, transmitted through family. At my last count, there were about 250. Yesterday afternoon, I dissuaded somebody who wanted to set up an all-party group on Marfan syndrome from doing so. Abraham Lincoln suffered from the condition, which affects particular people taller than 6 ft with long fingers. I hope that the Minister is listening. Sadly, they die from aortic aneurysms that have not been known about because there is no genetic testing for the syndrome. The condition does not run in the family, but a gene is associated with it.

Sadly, we have heard about the Chancellor’s little boy, who has cystic fibrosis, and about Duchenne muscular dystrophy. They do not consist simply of a gene and a condition; every affected individual has a different range of symptoms. That tells us clearly that we have to treat such people as individuals when it comes to their social lives. Genes do not always have the same aberration; they can be different within a gene. There are many different types of cystic fibrosis, Marfan syndrome and so on. Medical people are not always taught that lesson; they think that just one condition is involved and that all its manifestations should be treated the same.

I turn to the issue of quality of life. Last week, I spoke at the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence conference. It is tearing itself apart over “quality of life”, which it has to define before deciding whether drugs will improve it. A huge debate is coming up about what that phrase means.

Two friends of mine, Annie Kerr and Tom Shakespeare, have written a book that discusses genetic disability. They say that the problem is not inherited genes, but the society in which people develop, and that society cannot handle the kind of lifestyles that some people can undertake. It always wants the perfect person: the Olympic champion, the Wayne Rooney—perhaps not Wayne Rooney, but a star of that ilk.

The medical model is wrong; we should think about the society and quality of life that we provide for individuals. Deep down, that is what the report is about in a broader sense—what schools such people should go to, the medical treatment they should get, their employment prospects and their chances of independent living. In my constituency, the Julian Housing group is amazingly good at helping individuals and giving them the confidence to lead their lives on their own. We have to think of all such things and join them up in many different ways.

Disability is still stigmatised in many quarters. My people in Norfolk say, “We are very good with disability—better than other counties.” However, when I press them, they say, “Yes, a lot more can be done.” Last month, during Enterprise week, I went to Norfolk and Norwich Scope Association—NANSA—which deals with cerebral palsy. It was an amazing day. The people who work there are mainly women, and the commitment, devotion and time that they give the individuals with whom they deal are absolutely amazing. The women help them to access toys and equipment so that their quality of life can be improved. 

I have met mums at the association who can work only part-time because they have to care for their son or daughter. In that situation, a person has to be hard, rather than mad, and want to do something about it. I was inspired by what those mums had done. They tell me about how hard the disability living allowance forms are to fill in and how little help they can get. They often talk about their poverty. We have heard about respite care, but those women cannot get their benefits that easily either. There are only a few after-school and holiday clubs. The child of one woman at NANSA had been on a waiting list for a special needs youth club for several years; other children were also finding it hard to get a place. There are special schools in Norwich for kids with different types of ability, but they are over-subscribed so the kids cannot get in. That is not an example of good society or of how to handle those issues.

I shall come to a conclusion to allow others to speak. When we talk to people in Norfolk county council who run services for the disabled, we ask, “What is the matter?” They say, “We sit around the table, we talk about kids, but when disability is mentioned, everybody shuts off and goes for a cup of tea.” That is not tolerable. No money is ring-fenced for looking after and buying equipment for people who have such disabilities. I am told stories of how Government money for such equipment has been taken out—that sounds like the national health service—and put into other areas of endeavour.

Disability is stigmatised in debating chambers—in Norfolk, at least. I am sure that it is true elsewhere. We need an agency that pulls all the resources together. People should not work in the silos where they work magnificently; we need to consider the co-ordination of treatment and develop the careers of those with disabilities.

I shall really finish now. There are a lot of problems in thinking about how we target or resource young people as they grow up. I know children who were cut off at the age of 18; there was nothing for them. It is not like that at the Connexions career service, which helps fully able people and provides a whole programme under which they can develop. I know that Connexions has a bit of trouble here and there, but disabled children do not have such a service. In Norfolk, at least, there does not seem to be a progression of interest and services to take them through to adult life. People are forward-looking; they want to do that, but do not have the resources.

I have just finished an inquiry on myalgic encephalomyelitis. It is interesting how many children have the condition. They cannot get out of bed during the day. There is a lack of co-ordination between education, medical and social services in respect of looking after children with the condition. In fact, some do not even believe that it exists. If our inquiry showed anything, it was that ME is a condition and that 250,000 or more people suffer from it. I ask the Minister to consider such problems, which are not like autism, which is now associated with disability; conditions such as ME are still not taught at medical school.

The families of disabled children do not ask for much; they simply want to be able to lead a normal life and to get the help and support that would allow them to do that. They want the right information, the right equipment, occasional respite and short breaks. That does not seem unreasonable; such things should be provided.

11:39:00

Mrs. Betty Williams (Conwy) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) on securing this debate. I thank her and my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) for how they chaired our inquiry sittings before the summer recess. Later, while some of us were enjoying ourselves elsewhere, they worked extremely hard to compile the draft report, which we considered after the summer. I salute what they did and applaud their deliberations and recommendations. The report is totally evidence-based, and I hope that the Government will accept not some of but all the recommendations.

I shall give my perspective as a parent as well as a parliamentarian. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood, who was the vice-chairman of the inquiry, worked extremely hard when she was the social services chairman in her area many years ago. Today, the needs of people with disabilities have risen some way up the political agenda. I am very pleased about that, but it was long overdue. As has been said, disability is more than just a word. Unfortunately, councillors, parliamentarians and people in other places think of one thing when they think of people with disabilities: someone sitting in a wheelchair. That is not entirely the case. There are different degrees and different disabilities, and that certainly applies to children with disabilities.

As a parent, I shall concentrate on children with learning disabilities, as that is where my husband and I have the greatest experience, although we also have experience with physical disability. I should like to share with Members what it was like for us as a young couple in 1973, when things were not as good as they are today. For example, we took our son to an orthopaedic consultant at the local hospital. He looked at our son, who was lying on the examination couch—we had gone to him because of our son’s physical handicap—and he asked me, a young mother, how my son was getting on. I said, “We think that he is improving.” He looked at our son without examining or even touching him and said, “With a case like this, I would not be too optimistic.” That is how some consultants treat children with disability. He had no interest in a child who had learning disabilities as well as a physical disability. We must put that right.

The report deals with the need for more funding, but money is not always the issue. In some cases, we need to change people’s attitudes. My husband and I thought that the consultant knew what he was doing when we went to see him, but we got back to our general practitioner and said, “Never send us to that person again.” We were directed to another consultant and never looked back. If I had listened to the first one, I would have thought that my son would never walk, but with our hard work and with the help of other consultants and a wheelchair, he is able to walk. That is why I say that disabilities mean different things to different people, and we need to change people’s attitudes.

Another issue that has been mentioned by colleagues is the disability living allowance, which used to be called the attendance allowance. I have a sorry story to tell about that as well. My husband and I applied for the attendance allowance reluctantly. Families and parents of children with disabilities are reluctant to apply for any help, whether financial or otherwise. We must address that point and make it easier for them to ask for help when they desperately need it.

Mrs. Humble
Sadly, in order not to invest in services, service providers—whether in health or social care, or whatever—all too often rely on the fact that parents will carry the burden. Surely, parents increasingly should stand up and demand services, so that those who should provide them do so.

Mrs. Williams
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and totally agree with her.

When the doctor came to our house, we had the impression that he was just ticking boxes on a form. My son had just had an operation and had plaster casts up to his knees on both legs. The doctor asked, “Does he wander away from home, Mrs. Williams?” I am not a violent person, but at that moment I could have slapped that doctor’s face. That would have been a gross insult to any parent, and it is why I honestly believe that we must change attitudes. For him, it was a question of ticking a box: the question was on the form, so he thought, “I need to ask the parents,” and he did so without even looking at the child to find out what he was able to do. That is another aspect.

On education, I must be careful. As hon. Members know, I represent a Welsh constituency. Education, health and other services are devolved to the National Assembly for Wales, but we must ensure that a disabled child in Wales does not receive better or worse services than a disabled child in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland. We need to have a healthy debate among our colleagues to ensure that disabled children receive the services that they need wherever they live and whichever Administration look after their interests.

We remember the Warnock report, which came out in the early 1980s. It put great emphasis on children with learning disabilities being able to receive their education through mainstream schools, and an attempt was made in the following decade to run down some of the special schools. As a parent, I was privileged to have been a governor of an excellent special school, Ysgol Pendalar in Caernarfon, before our son was born, so I had an idea what sort of education my child would have once he was old enough to attend school. The majority of parents in this country are not privileged with background knowledge, as I was.

I am conscious as well that some local education authorities are guilty—they probably have been for a long time—of not statementing a child because it saves the school money. That is cruel and callous, and it should not happen. We must put a stop to such attitudes. LEAs jolly well know that if a statement is placed on the child, the parents can make demands on them.

I could go on and on because I feel strongly about the matter. I wanted to share with colleagues what my husband and I had to go through in the 1970s, but the greatest worry that parents face when they are told that they have a profoundly handicapped child in the household is what will happen to the child when one or both of them die. We want to be sure, and to be happy and content in our own mind, that our son or daughter will receive adequate service when we die. That is why I repeat what my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood said.

We deliberated for hours, and we now have the report. I am confident that the Government will ensure that it is read properly—the intentions are good—and that we in Parliament will not rest until we are sure in our own mind that families with disabled children are properly looked after as we go into the next decade.

11:48:00

Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Con)
It is with total sincerity that I say what a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Members for Conwy (Mrs. Williams) and for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) and the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble). Members spoke eloquently, passionately and often movingly, and made their arguments very well indeed.

I congratulate everyone who was involved in the production of the report. It is a valuable contribution, but it is not an end in itself. It is more a new start for policy makers and the Government in moving forward in an important area. “Every Disabled Child Matters”—that is a wonderful and compelling campaign. We have 770,000 disabled children in the UK and each deserves to be able to live just an ordinary life, as the report explains. That would be wonderful, would it not? As far as possible, it is our duty as parliamentarians to try to achieve that. They need the right support at the right time in their lives.

When one considers life chances and what is important in the development of a child into an adult and in how people can live their adult lives with dignity, it is apparent that speech is very important. Someone can get by if they cannot read, write or add up, but not if they cannot speak. People look the other way, and quality of life is low. The provision of speech and language therapy is central to the dignity and quality of life of many people with disabilities, particularly those with complex disabilities.

I hope that the Minister will look positively to find ways to close the gap in the provision of professional speech therapists. We need a few thousand more and we need them in the next year or two. The Government are planning to close the gap over the next five years, but frankly that is not good enough. It is betraying the children and young adults who need those therapists now. I know that the Minister is a good and caring man and that he will be listening carefully.

My next point was raised more eloquently than I am able to do by the hon. Member for Conwy, and it concerns the special place of special schools in our society. Like the hon. Lady, I was involved in special schools, both as a parent of a special child and as a governor of special schools in the constituency of the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke)—in fact, I was chairman of the governors at a special school in her constituency. I learned to value, cherish and love the staff, the governors and the parents who made the schools so special. The best atmospheres and the best schools that we have in this country are the special schools.

I know that the Government are supporting extremely well the SLD schools, for those with serious learning difficulties—sorry, for those with severe learning difficulties. I had trouble with my own speech when I was a child, which is why I still have trouble when I am trying to make speeches in the Chamber, as hon. Members all know. However, my problem is with the schools for those with moderate learning difficulties. In some counties they are being left to wither on the vine. There was a policy of closing them down and moving everyone into mainstream education. We all know that mainstream education is very good for some children; it suits them and is right for them. However, for other children mainstream education is not good, and they require a special school for those with moderate learning difficulties.

Some education authorities and counties are trying to allow those MLD schools to wither on the vine and go away. They are not referring parents to the schools early enough. They are not enabling parents by giving them the right advice and information. The professionals seem to think that they know better than the parents; they do not. The parents usually know best what is right for their children, especially their special children. I make a plea for the MLD schools.

I want to refer to statementing, which the hon. Member for Conwy mentioned. It needs to be quicker, cheaper and easier for parents and counties, social services and local education authorities to get children statemented. We need the statementing process to be reviewed and to be made easier.

One final plea is for a return to a form of sheltered employment for disabled people—those with learning difficulties, complex difficulties and physical difficulties. We have seen difficulties with Remploy, which I hope can be addressed, but I want to see sheltered employment schemes in the private sector as they were in the 1980s. I had a sheltered employment scheme in my business that employed 10 people, and they added an enormous amount to my company. They gave more to my company than I ever gave to them by giving them employment. They brought us together as a community and added great value in many ways. I want us to review what we can do to ensure that people have opportunities throughout their lives, and are not merely cut off at 18, as the hon. Member for Norwich, North said.

I praise the carers of special and disabled children. There is the voluntary sector, with people such as Eddie Stacey, who runs the Phoenix club. I went to its Christmas dinner last Thursday at the Paddocks in Canvey Island, and there were 100 people there. It was a wonderful, joyous occasion. On the one hand, we have the voluntary sector, and on the other we have the professionals. They are caring people, who are not valued enough and not paid enough, and there are not enough of them. We must address that. However, mostly we have the parents and the families who do so much to care for and love their special children. As the hon. Member for Norwich, North said, the measure of a benevolent and caring society is how it treats vulnerable people. There are few groups in society that are more vulnerable than disabled children, God bless them.

11:56:00

Annette Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I, too, start by congratulating the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) on securing the debate and I broaden my congratulations to include the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke). I congratulate them on their chairmanship, vice-chairmanship and strong leadership of the commission and review, on which I was honoured to be asked to serve. I want to thank Contact a Family, the Council for Disabled Children, Mencap, the Special Educational Consortium and Children Now. Their support was felt strongly throughout our hearings. I want, too, to congratulate the organisations on their production and launch of the “Every Disabled Child Matters” manifesto. It is telling that it was seen to be necessary to produce a separate manifesto, and it is obvious that there are many areas where the needs of disabled children are not yet sufficiently well covered by the “Every Child Matters” agenda.

As we have heard, the population of disabled children sadly continues to rise. We are talking about 770,000 children—7 per cent. of all children. It is important to appreciate the individuality of every child, and the range of needs is enormous. They are varied, some are more complex than others and almost day by day we are learning more about certain conditions and how we can offer help and support. Like other MPs, I have had many cases brought to my attention in my constituency. What concerns me most is to hear over and over, “It is a constant battle.” Why does it have to be a battleground for families who are already facing so many problems?

It was an interesting experience to listen to the evidence throughout the hearings, but for me the saddest part was that there were no surprises in what we heard. It is time to give more attention to the many problems that face families with disabled children. As we know, many of the possible solutions can involve a great deal of expenditure. I said in another debate in this Chamber that in some ways I feel we need a national debate to establish the proportion of resources that we as a society are prepared to devote to addressing the many and varied needs of those children. Indeed, there are issues about their quality of life, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson).

Given the shortage of time, I will focus on a few matters, and I make no apology for starting with respite, which has been mentioned by every speaker this morning. If it is not at the top of my list, it is at least very near to it. People who come to our surgeries often say, “If only we had a break, it would make life so much easier to cope with.” The pressure on family relationships—between siblings and couples—is enormous.

I recently visited a respite centre in York called The Glen. I found during that wonderful visit not only that respite can be of enormous benefit to the families but that it can provide quality care for the children. It is a win-win situation, with children getting a change of scene and mixing with other children—and, in the case I have just cited, receiving high-quality care with superb resources.

I note that York city council ran an invest-to-save policy. By making more respite care available, it is possible to keep the child within the family rather than having to use residential care. That is so important. As we know, the availability of respite care is a post code lottery. People moving into my constituency who have received respite care in other areas are shattered because they get only a tiny proportion of it in my area. That makes it even harder to downgrade.

I deal now with the key worker and early support scheme. I too was very taken by the evidence of Sharon Kelly, who told us that she was dealing with 21 agencies, not to mention a baby with severe needs. It brought home to us how important the key worker is. I congratulate the Government on moving forward with that scheme, and I hope that we will be told when the key worker and the early support scheme will be available throughout the country.

Early intervention is all-important, as is a multi-agency approach. Again, we are moving in the right direction, but we are not yet there. I often cite a recent example from my constituency of a very disabled child forced to go to a nursery school on one side of the county, but the school was in a different primary care trust area from where they lived and it was a battle to get the necessary therapeutic services. Much work is needed to change our culture and attitudes, as the hon. Member for Conwy (Mrs. Williams) so eloquently explained.

I shall touch on the Child Care Act 2006. I served on the Committee that considered that legislation. I know that the Minister was not involved, but we were concerned about the implementation of the excellent provisions on child care for disabled children whose parents were working. We were concerned that local authorities would not have sufficient funding, because it is expensive to provide and tailor child care for children with disabilities. I wonder whether there has been time to monitor local authorities to find out whether they have enough money—whether they are supplying what the 2006 Act says they should.

I was equally interested in the final recommendation that there should be more resources for the training of staff on information services. That was another principle of the 2006 Act, and another factor that the Committee raised. It is important that information is available to help the parents of disabled children and to alert them to their eligibility for various benefits and to support them in applying for the disability living allowance. I wonder whether the Minister and the Government have reviewed the provision of such services following the 2006 Act. It is a scandal that, even today, families are totally unaware that they are eligible for the disability living allowance. It is often MPs who tell their constituents about it, but that cannot be right. There has to be a better supply of information.

I had the pleasure of speaking during the debate on the Select Committee report on special educational needs. It is important that the Government should reconsider their response to the Committee’s recommendations. The Government did not go far enough. It was excellent that they should have focused on the fact that teachers need better training and that we need more specialist special educational needs co-ordinators. Much progress has been made, but I agree with other hon. Members about the variability of statementing across the country. It is not yet right, and certain aspects of special educational needs need to be reviewed, but sadly the Government did not accept that. We do not need a moratorium, but we clearly need a review.

I, too, have always been concerned about the transition stage, and it was good that the review was able to consider a number of aspects. I have always been concerned about the limited educational choice offered to parents of children aged 16 and above. In my area, they usually go to the local college, but parents feel frustrated that they are not offered a choice and that they have to do much research themselves.

I deal now with communication, which has many aspects. First, the voices of children and parents, which we picked up on in our review, must influence the way services are designed and delivered. We are moving in that direction, but it is not universal for children’s views to be sought. Some children with complex needs should have an independent advocate. I agree with the Children’s Society that, as a minimum, every disabled child or young person placed away from home should have a statutory right to independent advocacy. That is so important for all children who are not able to speak up for themselves or who need support to do so.

There also needs to be someone to listen. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children points out that three to four times as many disabled children are likely to have been abused as is the case among the general population. It is therefore important to provide helplines for those who suffer abuse.

I refer briefly to the charity I CAN. I am pleased that the Department for Education and Skills has agreed that the charity’s early talk programme will be rolled out as a pilot in more than 200 children's centres and a number of primary schools in England. The number of children with communication difficulties is staggering. Perhaps one in 10 has a physical difficulty, but we are creating disability by not talking at home as much as we used to, so as many as 50 per cent. of five-year-olds arrive at school without the speech and language skills needed to participate fully. It is important to note that such needs are growing all the time. I echo the point about speech and language therapists. I believe that some are unemployed, as are some physiotherapists. I hope that they will soon be employed.

The Scope campaign “Speak for yourself” aims to help those who need technology to support their communications. I understand that the DFES has funded a communicating aids project that has provided equipment to more than 4,000 children. However, the funding came to an end in March this year, and the scheme has not yet been rolled out universally. The Minister may wish to reply in writing, but I wonder why no formal public evaluation of that excellent project was undertaken. The general point is that successful projects need sustained funding.

I shall make that my last point, having seen the time. Much innovative work is going on, but we need to ensure that there is a minimum universal offer and that projects do not come to a shattering end simply because one pot of money has been closed and nothing has been put place to fill the gap.

12:08:00

Mr. Jeremy Hunt (South-West Surrey) (Con)
It is a privilege to follow the contributions of so many passionate and committed speakers. The one most likely to stay in my mind was that of the hon. Member for Conwy (Mrs. Williams), who told us of her conversation with the consultant and his saying about her son, “With a case like this, I would not be too optimistic.” Her experience, and how she dealt with it, is testimony to the quiet heroism of the many hundreds of thousands of parents seeking to deal with the huge challenge of trying to give the best possible childhood to their disabled children.

I add my congratulations to the “Every Disabled Child Matters” consortium for raising the issue and pushing it up the political agenda. In particular, I thank the organisations that make up that consortium: Contact a Family, the Council for Disabled Children, Mencap and the Special Education Consortium. I add my heartfelt thanks and congratulations to the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) and the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) on the excellent way in which they have chaired the parliamentary inquiry on this issue. The inquiry had an enormous impact on moving this issue up the political agenda. I hope the result will be that, finally, a wrong is righted in terms of how we, as a society, address the issue of disabled children.

Groucho Marx said that politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. Many parents of disabled children would feel that that echoes their experiences. I suggest that the plight of disabled children should be central to social policy today because it concerns the health of our families. A healthy society has healthy families; social breakdown occurs when there is family breakdown. At the moment there are many things wrong with state support—for example, the bureaucracy of social services and the inflexibility of local education authorities. Parents who face the enormous challenge of dealing with a disabled child—perhaps the biggest challenge that they have had in their life—find that instead of focusing all their energy, attention and love on bringing up that child, they are forced to focus their energy and attention on fighting the system to get the best possible deal. That cannot be right.

I will give hon. Members an example from my constituency that I heard quite recently, where a child with cerebral palsy was placed in a school that his mother did not agree was right for her son. She told me about the 11 steps it took to get that decision changed. Step 1 involved the mother questioning whether the LEA’s choice of school was right and at step 2 the child was assessed by an educational psychologist at nursery school and at home. Step 3 involved the LEA case officer giving the mother just 10 days to identify alternative schools for her son, but refusing to tell her which schools were accessible. At step 4 the mother searched frantically for 10 days to try and find alternative schools and by step 5 the mother was told she had been allocated two schools—neither of which were on her preferred shortlist. One of the schools was a one hour and 10 minutes drive away and would have meant a two hours 20 minutes drive every day. At step 6, a panel confirmed a place at the nearer of the two schools, but it was not one of the schools she had chosen. By step 7 she was given two more weeks to identify an alternative school. At step 8 she was finally offered a place at a local mainstream school that she thought would be appropriate, but at step 9 was told her child could not be offered a place because there were no accessible toilets. Step 10 involved the mother fighting the school to ask a surveyor to assess the cost of introducing accessible toilets and by step 11 the LEA finally allowed the child to go to the school, but only from 9 to 12 in the morning for the first year because the accessible toilets would not be completed. That is an example of the nightmare that parents up and down the country face with the statementing system.

Sir Al Aynsley-Green described the education provision for autistic children as “shocking” and “appalling” in his role as children’s commissioner. There is copious evidence from the parliamentary inquiry that parents think that social care and education provision are poor. The inquiry stated:

“Our hearings have found that services for disabled children are failing to deliver the Government’s stated objectives for children and families—the Every Child Matters outcomes”.

There is not simply a shortage of money. We spend £3.5 billion on special educational needs, £14.4 billion on social care and £14.7 billion on disability benefits. Often, a shortage of imagination, as well as a shortage of money, is the root cause of the problem. We have heard from hon. Members today that the numbers of disabled children are increasing. Taking into account all the different types of cerebral palsy—hemiplegia, diplegia, quadriplegia—one in 400 children is born with cerebral palsy. The number of severely disabled children is around 49,000, which has doubled since 1988. Yet the support that those children receive from the state is appalling. A recent survey by Mencap said that seven out of 10 families with a severely disabled child are at breaking point because of a lack of short breaks. An earlier survey said that 48 per cent. of such families receive no help at all and 30 per cent. receive less than two hours help a week.

I would like the Minister to consider what I think some of the solutions are. We need a simplified benefits system with a single assessment process. According to one Mencap survey, 37 per cent. of families are dealing with eight or more different professionals. The “Every Disabled Child Matters” consortium talks about the key worker concept mentioned by the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke). In Austria, a disabled child is assessed by a single multidisciplinary team, which includes a paediatric nurse, a children’s doctor, a physiotherapist and an information officer. That team is at the disposal of parents and, from the moment of assessment, is available to help them. Such an assessment should be passportable so that if parents move to a different part of the country they can take it with them, it is recognised by other authorities and they do not have to go back to square one.

The benefits system and the accessing of resources are hugely complicated. The different sources of finance include: the disability living allowance; the severe disability premium; the individual learning fund; the wheelchair service; and funding from the local council for housing adaptations, from social services and from the LEA. The result of that complexity is low take-up rates; of the 772,000 disabled children in this country, only half are claiming DLA. A recent excellent survey, “Out of Reach”, by the Child Poverty Action Group and Contact A Family, described a survey in which 27 per cent. of parents took more than two years to discover that they were entitled to DLA. A third could not identify the fact that claiming DLA was not related to how much they were earning and a third were put off claiming by the length of the form.

We need a reformed statementing system and to look at whether we can have an independent assessment of children’s needs. There should be more creativity in special educational needs teaching. My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) talked about the chronic shortage of speech and language therapists, and we need to solve that problem. As well as focusing on the basics, we need to concentrate on the things that build the confidence of disabled children. As one parent of a disabled child said at a seminar that I went to, “We need to educate the soul of the child because the soul of the child is not disabled.” There is huge disappointment—I ask the Minister to address this—at the Government’s response to the Select Committee on Education and Skills report, particularly the statement in the response that

“the evidence does not, in the Government's view, suggest a system in need of fundamental review”.

The Minister would need only to talk to two or three parents who have gone through the statementing process and he would find that his mind changed very quickly on that.

I would like the Government to consider links to poverty and social exclusion. The Government know that the income in disabled households is 20 to 30 per cent. lower than in other households and that statemented children are three times more likely to be excluded. Special educational needs children account for 64 per cent. of all exclusions and are twice as likely to be on free school meals as other children. That is the group to target if we wish to address poverty and social exclusion among children.

Bill Clinton once said that being leader of a political party is like working in a graveyard: there are lots of people underneath, but they are not necessarily listening. I hope that our leaders and other people are listening and that this can be the start of a change in policy for parents who just want to be parents, for families who just want to be families, and for children who, despite the enormous challenges that nature has thrown in their path, just want to have a happy and fulfilled childhood.

12:19:00

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Mr. Parmjit Dhanda)
It is good to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr. Taylor. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) on securing the debate. She has done a terrific job not only in securing it, but in the role that she played in the parliamentary hearings. We heard testimony to that throughout the debate. For a Minister, it is quite nice sometimes to throw away one’s speaking notes and be in listening mode, and this has been a good opportunity to do that because, as my hon. Friend said, those parliamentary hearings will play a key role in the Government’s children and young people’s review. The role that she played alongside my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) is supported by hon. Members throughout the House who played a role in the hearings, not least my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who has joined us in this debate. The least we can do is pay credit to him for acting as a catalyst at the outset of the process.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood talked about the early support pilots and the value of key workers, and it has been interesting to see that. She makes a very good point, and in the context of the debate, we will take a close look at that issue. It is useful to have that feedback from her about what is happening on the ground with those pilots.

My hon. Friend also mentioned, as did most contributors to the debate, the value of short breaks. She will be aware that, within existing legislation, there is provision for short breaks, but I appreciate from what we have been finding and hearing, not just in the debate but in other forums, that parents of disabled children bring up that issue time and again, so I am grateful to her for making that clear to us again today.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill made it clear that he would not talk about the problems that have been identified and the additional billions of pounds of funding, so I shall not do so either. It would be easy to talk about how things have moved on and changed, but we are here today in the context of the parliamentary hearings and the role that they will play as part of the children and young people’s review, in which the Department for Education and Skills and Her Majesty’s Treasury are involved jointly. It is important to listen to that review. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who is sitting alongside me, has said that the interim findings in relation to the hearings and the evidence that my hon. Friends have taken will be available in January. I hope that that will be useful and helpful.

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) talked about the science of the issue—I am quite accustomed to him doing that. He had me quite concerned when he talked about tall people with long fingers and the ramifications of that for their health. He also said that he was doing a lot of coaching for disabled children in his constituency. His coaching of my good self has not done me a great deal of good over the years, but there we are. He also made a very good point about the need for greater joined-up working across Government with regard to ME. The DFES and the Department of Health need to take that on board. We are conscious that it is an area in which it is important to have greater and stronger working across Government.

I think that the most passionate contribution to the debate was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Conwy (Mrs. Williams), who talked about her personal experience from 1973. That made me think. In 1973, I was two years old, so I am probably of a similar age to her son. She also talked about the effects of DLA and the difficulties that people have with forms. I note that, among the 27 recommendations, there is a section on that on page 71 of the report on the hearings, so we will look at it in the context of our review. My hon. Friend also said, very passionately, that this issue is not just about money; it is about a change in people’s attitudes to children with disabilities. That could not have been explained in any starker terms than the ones she used when she told us what happened when she and her child saw a consultant back in 1973.

The hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink)—another veteran of the Select Committee on Science and Technology—made interesting points about special schools, as did the hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt). Rather than getting into a long and in-depth discussion on that issue, I say to both of them that I was in Westminster Hall just a few weeks ago for a three-hour discussion on it, in response to a report produced by the Select Committee on Education and Skills. I urge both hon. Gentlemen to obtain the relevant copy of Hansard, because it was a comprehensive and interesting debate. We are doing everything that we can to support parental choice, and we are doing some excellent things on specialist educational provision, but rather than opening that up in this debate, I urge hon. Members to have a look at the record of that debate if they get the chance to do so.

The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) also contributed to the debate—we must stop meeting like this; we will probably do so again later today when we have a discussion about looked-after children. As is her way, she peppered me with an array of questions, and I promise to write to her to try to answer some of them. I disagree with her on one aspect of what she said. I think that it was probably a slip of the tongue more than anything else when she said that it is sad to see the increase in the number of disabled children; the figure is now at 770,000. I believe that we need to celebrate what my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North said, which is that more children are surviving. There have been real changes over the years in terms of science and technology and medical breakthroughs. However, I agree entirely with the hon. Lady that the role of the key worker is very important. That was also highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood. The hon. Lady made kind comments about the roll-out of I CAN and what we are doing in the DFES to support that, and I appreciate her remarks.

The hon. Member for South-West Surrey said that this issue is not just about finance. He mentioned independent statementing as well, and again I refer him to the debate of a few weeks ago, because on that occasion, as on many others, we were asked whether, in terms of the direction of travel, we are talking about taking that out of local democratic accountability. I do not think that that is the most effective way forward. A great deal of work is being done on statementing and the period in which parents should have a response, but I urge the hon. Gentleman, if he has the opportunity, to take a closer look at the record of that debate. If he wanted to get into correspondence with me, I would be happy for him to do so.

The exercise that we are discussing has been very worthwhile and innovative. As the document says:

“This report results from an innovative exercise in consultation carried out alongside a government review process.”

In my short time in government and my longer time in Parliament, I have never been aware of a process linking a Government and departmental review with a series of parliamentary hearings set up by a group of Back Benchers, involving not only hon. Members on both sides of the House but, as has been mentioned, charities and voluntary organisations—the third sector. It has been a very worthwhile process. I look forward to taking a closer look at the report and its 27 recommendations. It is a sign of just how important the issue is that sitting alongside me is someone who is not only one of the guiding lights of the process, but a Treasury Minister. I congratulate all involved in securing the debate, most particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood.

David Taylor (in the Chair)
The next debate, on community policing in Somerset, will be opened by the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne).