Education Bill

My Lords, like many noble Lords in the Chamber, we welcome the direct payments initiative. It is right that it should be piloted and closely scrutinised. We will play our part in that. I hope that the Minister is able to reassure us that the outcome of the pilots will be fully debated by your Lordships' House in due course. I suspect that we will find that, as with many initiatives, it is the detail that matters and how the new powers are interpreted by parents and local authorities alike. We need clear advice and updates on how the pilots are working in practice. The outcome has to be an improvement in the provision of SEN services in schools and the pilots will need to demonstrate that all SEN children, not just those of middle-class parents, have an improved quality of service. Noble Lords have raised a number of important questions in the short debate, but there remain some concerns that I hope the Minister will be able to help me with. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, I say that these points may have been covered in the discussions, but forgive me if I am not up to speed on some of the discussions that have taken place. First, how can we be assured that the payments will be enough to cover identified need so that the parents will not be expected to make up the difference from their own budgets? Secondly, how will other families be assured that other budgets will not be cut to fund these payments, thereby adversely affecting other services provided by the local authorities? Thirdly, how will the special position of looked-after children be protected? For example, foster carers will potentially administer the payments but might be perceived to have a conflict of interest, as they are also employees of the local authority. Lastly, on the level of support and advocacy provided to parents, which the Minister touched on, can he reassure us that that will be independent of local authorities because undoubtedly parents will find the system new, potentially difficult and overwhelming in terms of the choice and the bureaucracy with which they are faced? Perhaps he could clarify the level of independence that would be available. A separate, procedural point is that we find ourselves, once again, tonight making policy on important issues on the hoof. These issues would have benefited from a longer period of consultation, both within the House and outside. The legislation, as drafted, has been placed in completely the wrong part of the Bill; it is in Part 7, which deals with post-16 education and I do not suppose that the Minister is suggesting that these payments are restricted to post-16. The Government should do better than this and, if they do not, they cannot complain when humble Back-Benchers follow their example and try to misuse the structure of Bills to put bits of legislation in the wrong place. Notwithstanding all that, we support the intent of the Government’s proposals and we look forward to the future scrutiny which, we trust, will occur in due course.