My Lords, the Secretary of State, Mr Gove, said in a speech at what may have been at his party conference:
“I’m really lucky to have as the Minister for Children and Families Edward Timpson. In the last year, Edward has transformed the education of children with special needs in order to ensure that all young children living with a disability at last have the support they need all the way up to the age of 25”.
I repeat: all the way up to the age of 25. In the debate in the other place the Minister said, as I said in my opening remarks, that age should not be the only factor considered when determinations are made. In response to this debate the Minister has said that our concerns on the age question are unfounded. If he can assuage our concerns and take out the reference to age altogether, we will all be happy bunnies. It is as simple as that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said rightly that age was an artificial link. So far as my Amendments 137, 145, 165 and 173, as well as colleagues’ amendments are concerned, it is important to bear in mind that the Bill says that local authorities should “have regard to” a young person’s age when making a determination, for example, to review or cease a plan. I do not know how this is going to turn out, but we may well come back to it. Recently I spoke to someone I have known for years. He worked with me when I was a councillor and he was a local government official. We discussed this and he said, “Give me half an hour and I will give you three papers in which you as a councillor will be able to say, ‘We do not have to continue this support because of the age question’”. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, made the important point that councils do not want to do anything bad or wrong in terms of this Bill or what they want for young children with disabilities or learning difficulties, but because of financial difficulties and other reasons they will look at the legislation to see if there is a way to avoid doing a particular thing.
I think we share an ambition to try to resolve this. The Minister cannot fail to have been impressed by the quality of the comments and the expertise of this Committee, and I am sure that every Member will happily volunteer to join his Bill team. We will find the time in our busy lives to help him redraft some of these amendments so that he will not have this problem. I do not think that it is going to go away. We will come back to it on Report. In the mean time, I beg to leave to withdraw the amendment.