Academies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am concerned that there is continuing anxiety about the protection for children’s special educational needs in the Bill. I am grateful to the Minister for the meetings he has had with Peers interested in this area and I will listen to his response with great care. Concern about the continuance of educational psychologists has been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, in previous stages of the Bill. In the past there has been a lot of concern that there were insufficient educational psychologists and that more was not done to ensure that their development was of the highest quality. I hope that the Minister can, either now or in writing later, provide some further reassurance that the changes in the Bill will not impact on the future supply of educational psychologists.