My Lords, the purpose of my amendment is to specify the territorial limits to where councils are expected to fund arrangements. I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Protecting children and helping to provide for their future is, I am sure we all agree, one of the most important things that councils do. I therefore wholeheartedly welcome most of the provisions in the Bill, but I am concerned about certain measures in Clause 58 that would enable local authorities to arrange special educational provision for a young person with an EHC plan outside England and Wales. This clause enables local authorities to make provision in an institution that specialises in providing for special educational needs and gives them power to pay for or contribute to the costs of the child or young person who attends such an institution, which might, quite rightly, include travelling and accommodation costs for someone to accompany the child or young person.
This clause gives local authorities the power—not a duty—to make this provision, but demands on resources at the moment, as we all know, make it difficult to envisage the circumstances when local authorities would
realistically be able to arrange special educational provision outside the UK. I am concerned that, without the extent of this clause being specified, local authorities might be expected to arrange provision in countries outside the United Kingdom. It might well be in the United States, for example, or in the Middle East, and this would be extremely expensive for a local authority to provide. It would certainly raise expectations that the local authority would do so. Parents may take cases to appeal if my amendment is not accepted. The amendment would provide for special educational needs provision to be arranged elsewhere in the United Kingdom, but not in other countries. I think this is reasonable, and I beg to move.