Children and Families Bill

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has on many occasions displayed his deep knowledge and understanding of the subject, and as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on autism continues to fight for the cause admirably. Of course he is right: we want better integration of services, and better co-ordination of assessments relating to education, health and social care. That is why, in the Bill, there is for the first time a statutory duty to ensure joint commissioning of services relating to education and social care; there is a duty on the different agencies to co-operate. Through the local offer, they will all have to publish—through a common framework, which we will set out in the code of practice and in regulations—what services they have on offer locally for children with a disability or a special educational need, so that there is much more transparency, and people can hold them to account much more effectively.