Academies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I also support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins. As a child whose parents used the Warnock report to enable me to go into mainstream education, and had several discussions with the local education authority over a number of months to enable me to do that and not be shipped off to a special school, I have direct experience of budgets not being allocated. I went to school at a time when there was no statementing for disabled children. I had an education and went to school, but there was no access and there were no lifts. The local education authority employed six people to carry the wheelchair users up and down the stairs. So I had an education and went to a school but I was away from home and I felt quite isolated in the environment that I was in. My concern, if this is not properly addressed, is that children will, like me, receive an education but they will be isolated, away from their peer group, and they will not receive the rounded education that they all deserve.