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Ministerial Visits

Q6. [187685] Mr. Anthony Steen (Totnes) (Con): If he will pay an official visit to Berry Pomeroy castle, Marldon, Devon.

The Prime Minister: I have no current plans to do so.

Mr. Steen: The Prime Minister knows that castles were built in the south of England to repel invaders, mostly from the continent. Increasing numbers of people in the west country feel that the freedoms for which they fought have been eroded by the European Union and that their homes are no longer their castles. Does he agree that we need an early referendum on the European constitution so that Britain can lead the way in that process, and not be the last country to enter it, after all the others have reached a decision?

The Prime Minister: I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman over Europe, but that will not surprise him. However, I point out that the creation of the EU and our membership of it mean that the wars that used to divide our continent no longer do so. It is important that we weigh that in the balance when arguing about whether to be in favour of Europe. However, I will tell the House about Berry Pomeroy castle. I gather from its website that it is haunted—primarily by a blue lady called Margaret.

Engagements

Q7. [187687] Dr. Andrew Murrison (Westbury) (Con): Does the Prime Minister agree that mobile phone masts should be subject to normal planning control? If so, when will he amend planning guidance so that local people have a proper say about where they are sited?

The Prime Minister: As I have said on many occasions, our approach to this matter should be based on the science involved and the real safety issues. Of course people should be consulted about where masts are sited, but it is also important that we make the phone system work adequately.

Jane Griffiths (Reading, East) (Lab): Since the House rose on 22 July, we have all had reason to be proud of the achievements of Team GB in Athens. Will my right hon. Friend add his congratulations to my constituent Sarah Webb, who won a gold medal with her team mates in the women's Yngling sailing? Will he also congratulate everyone in Team GB, whether or not they were medal winners?
 
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The Prime Minister: I am happy to send my congratulations to Sarah Webb, to all those who won medals at the Olympic games and to all those who took part. They did superbly for Team GB, and I am sure that the whole House would want to send our best wishes and thanks.

Q8. [187688] Bob Spink (Castle Point) (Con): Is the Prime Minister aware that children's hospice week begins on 18 September? Will he acknowledge the wonderful work done by the people in that service? Children's hospices in England get about 5 per cent. of their income from public funds, but the Little Haven hospice in my constituency receives less than 2 per cent. Does he accept that that is wrong? Will he accept responsibility for looking into the matter and not pass it on to the primary care trust?

The Prime Minister: I pay tribute to the considerable work that the hon. Gentleman does in respect of the hospice movement. All of us would like greater funding to go to the hospices. An additional £48 million in funding has been made available over the next three years by the New Opportunities Fund and £15 million of that will go directly to children's hospices. We are always aware of the need to do more, and we will try to do more, but it is important to recognise that we have increased the funding significantly. We will increase it even more, as we can, although that has to be weighed in the balance with other health service priorities.

Mr. Bob Blizzard (Waveney) (Lab): Is my right hon. Friend aware that, since a dispersal order was put in place in part of south Lowestoft in my constituency, the number of violent offences there has already fallen by 49 per cent? Will he join me in congratulating Chief Inspector Sydney and his team? Does not that show that, when local authorities use the measures contained in the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, which was introduced by this Government, they are effective in cracking down on crime and antisocial behaviour?

The Prime Minister: I am happy to pass on my congratulations to the police in my hon. Friend's constituency, and to the others engaged in trying to deal with antisocial behaviour. There is increasing evidence from around the country that the powers can work if they are implemented. It is important for Members of Parliament, local authorities and the police to be aware that there are substantial additional powers that can be used, for example, to close down houses used for drug dealing. More than 20,000 fixed-penalty notices have been given up and down the country and other powers allow us to target very young children whose parents do not exercise proper parental responsibility.

There are now a whole series of measures to deal with that and it simply requires imaginative use of them at local level. I am delighted that in my hon. Friend's constituency there is yet another example of how that can be done.

Q9. [187689] Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion) (PC): Does the Prime Minister agree with the proposal from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards that any Member—any Member—who lies or misleads the House should face investigation from the commissioner?
 
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The Prime Minister: I am sure that the commissioner for standards is right in saying that and I hope that no hon. Member lies to the House. That has always been the case; it should always be the case and, as far as I am aware, it is.

Q10. [187690] Vera Baird (Redcar) (Lab): Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the American company, Huntsman, on yesterday's announcement that it will build a £200 million polyethylene plant in my Redcar constituency? The deal was made possible by a £16.5 million grant from the Labour Government. Will my right hon. Friend continue his support for the Teesside chemical industry and does he agree that 120
 
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long-term, skilled jobs for Redcar are a prize that would never have been achieved under the regional policies of the Conservative party?

The Prime Minister: It is obviously fantastic news for the company and the employees because it safeguards almost 800 existing jobs on Teesside and adds more than 100 extra jobs. That is great news for the whole of Teesside. My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right in saying that it was in part done with regional selective assistance of £16.5 million, and I would simply point out to the leader of the Liberal Democrats that, under his proposals, that money, too, would not have been available; throughout the country, there are massive regional selective assistance programmes that would be cut if their policy had its way.

 
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Access to Literature (Visually-Impaired Children)

12.32 pm

Mrs. Annette L. Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD): I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about accessible formats for printed works for visually-impaired children.

The Bill aims to build on the important changes brought about by the Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act 2002. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Rachel Squire) and the noble Lord Morris of Manchester on the passage of that private Member's Bill on to the statute book.

However, visually impaired children still face problems in accessing literature. Children who are visually impaired or have other reading disabilities such as dyslexia are not getting the accessible information that they need to ensure that they have opportunities equal to their non-disabled peers, both in education and in leisure reading. Jacqueline Wilson, the popular children's author, has given her support to the Bill and, with many other famous authors, supports the important Right to Read campaign.

Access to literature for visually impaired children, who cannot read standard print text, is made possible through accessible formats such as large print, audio tape or Braille, or synthesized speech for children with a reading disability such as dyslexia.

Visual impairment in children is fortunately a low-incidence disability, with approximately 23,000 children between birth and 16 years of age in the UK affected. I recently met a family in my constituency with a baby born blind and they feel very isolated.

In addition, about 4 per cent. of the population are severely dyslexic. A further 6 per cent. have mild to moderate problems. Synthetic speech output or audiotape is often one of the only ways in which children with dyslexia can access literature.

The Department for Education and Skills states that funding is available for the provision of accessible information through the schools access initiative, which can be used for the production of materials to enable access to the curriculum for children with reading disabilities.

However, recent parliamentary questions have revealed that it is not clear nationally how much money is being spent on access to literature for children with reading disabilities via that initiative. Reports from teachers, support workers and the voluntary sector identify significant shortages.

I am delighted that I no longer hear of cases where children who are wheelchair users are prevented from attending their local schools and that funding is available for appropriate adaptations, but I am concerned about the adequacy of funding for visually impaired children. On making inquiries of the local authorities in my area, I discovered variations in policies. In one authority, any expenditure under £3,000 had to be financed by the schools from devolved funding. The threshold was higher in the two other local authorities.
 
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Despite the obligations laid on schools and local education authorities by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001, children are not getting the materials that they need or want in the format that they require. Textbooks can cost several thousand pounds to adapt into accessible formats, and specialist teachers spend many hours adapting textbooks for students in individual schools. I have learned of teachers in Dorset this summer spending much time producing "Romeo and Juliet" in large-print format. Currently, there is no national co-ordination of accessible information for schools, leading to duplication and resource wastage.

The Royal National Institute of the Blind's "Shaping the Future" campaign report, published in 2000, found that one in three blind and partially sighted pupils in mainstream secondary schools did not always get their school test and exam papers in their preferred format and that 25 per cent. of secondary pupils in mainstream schools said they did not usually get handouts in a format that they prefer. No major study similar to "Shaping the Future" has been undertaken since the introduction of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001. However, organisations such as the VI Forum—an e-mail group for teachers and support assistants working with blind and partially sighted children—regularly feature stories of pupils not getting the materials that they need to gain access to the curriculum.

The RNIB carried out an informal survey of teachers, asking them which key stage 3 and 4 textbooks they would like the charity to produce during the 2004–05 academic year. Seventeen subjects and 129 different texts by 22 different publishers were requested, but the RNIB has the capacity to produce only 10 publications in accessible formats. A teacher asked the RNIB to transcribe two music scores into Braille. To cover costs, an £800 charge had to be made for the work, but the teacher had a total annual budget of only £500 for four students.

The Right to Read Alliance has argued for some time that a constructive step would be to increase the schools access initiative budget and provide dedicated funding to support the national co-ordination of publishing in alternative formats and to commission centrally not only specialist books but those for which there would be a particularly high demand.

Given the relatively small number of blind and partially sighted children in the school population, too much financial responsibility has been put on schools. The problem is exacerbated by the diversity of materials that children need and the range of formats. My Bill therefore proposes that national co-ordination of accessible format materials be undertaken to avoid duplication and resource wastage.

A second problem is knowing what accessible information resources are available. Moves towards solving that problem have already taken place with the creation of Revealweb, supported and managed by the RNIB and the National Library for the Blind. That online database contains all the accessible format works available from the not-for-profit sector. It therefore allows anyone—parents and teachers—to search for
 
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where they could find an accessible format copy of a book that they need for a child. My Bill proposes that a similar initiative be established to include accessible format works produced commercially. That would enable the parents and teachers of children with reading disabilities to find out whether the books that they are looking for are already available in accessible formats.

There are still cases where a visually impaired child will not be able to access a newly published book at the same time as other children. One of the major barriers that not-for-profit agencies face in making accessible format copies of literature available at the same time as, or soon after, print versions are published is gaining access to the electronic files of the text. If a document has to be scanned and then formatted, months can be added to the time taken to produce accessible formats. Publishers and voluntary sector transcription agencies working together can build relationships based on trust, whereby early access to electronic versions of texts can be arranged. My Bill proposes an improvement to that situation.

The library and statistics information unit at Loughborough university conducted a survey of library authorities in 2000 and found that only 5 per cent. of library authorities had a written policy on services for blind and partially sighted people and that only 25 per cent. had a specific budget for those services.

It also conducted a survey of 600 blind and partially sighted people in 2001 that found that 50 per cent. had not used their public library in the last three years. The other 50 per cent. who had used libraries reported difficulties with using the services on offer. My Bill includes a modest proposal for library services.
 
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In addition to the measures contained in my Bill, I want to raise the issue of the VAT that is levied on the audio books that people with reading disabilities rely on to access literature. I hope that the Government will work at European level to secure a reduction of the VAT levied on audio books, bearing in mind that print works do not attract VAT.

In conclusion, a lack of accessible-format curriculum materials and books is having a profound effect on the opportunities available to children with reading disabilities. A number of solutions are needed to improve that situation and my Bill contains some simple proposals, including dedicated funding within the schools access initiative budget to ensure efficient co-ordination and production of accessible information; the establishment of a complete database of commercially available accessible-format works, to complement the Revealweb database; the establishment of a national repository for electronic versions of texts that have been published to facilitate the transition of works into accessible formats; and libraries to have written policies on services to blind and partially sighted people and allocate a budget for those services. I hope, therefore, that the House will support my Bill.

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