My Lords, I entirely endorse the arguments advanced by my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch on Amendment 73. I spoke about this at Second Reading and argued then that the Bill must protect existing rights for parents and young people and not diminish them. I think we all agree on that. At present, parents rely on their right to appeal statements at a tribunal. However, if my understanding is correct, under the new system that the Bill will introduce, only provision which is deemed to be,
“wholly or mainly for the purposes of education”,
can be appealed in this way. This raises the threshold, as my noble friend Lady Jones said, and it restricts the ability of parents to uphold their rights and support the needs of their children. The removal of the three words “wholly or mainly” is, I think, absolutely necessary.
My noble friend referred to the letter that the Minister sent to all noble Lords following the Second Reading debate. She mentioned that he said that the Government would be looking at ways to address this matter. He also explained—and this gave me some hope—why Clause 21(5) was included in the Bill, but he added:
“As there is now a duty on health commissioning bodies to secure the health care provision in a Plan, this clause is no longer necessary to ensure that the child or young person receives the health care provision specified in the Plan.
However, retaining the clause does enable young people and parents to appeal to the tribunal in respect of health care provision where it is defined as special educational provision in accordance with the clause—as now”,
a point just made. We now need some clarity from the Government about precisely what they want to do about this part of the Bill.