My Lords, I shall speak to this group of amendments on the SEN code of practice for 0 to 25 year-olds. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones, and my noble friend Lady Sharp for tabling these amendments and raising this important matter. I am also grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. I have listened carefully, and it is important that we ensure that there is a good understanding of and confidence in the code of practice. It is vital to the success of the new system. I hope I can reassure noble Lords in my response.
Turning first to Amendment 206 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Low, we are in complete agreement with the intention behind it. I think all noble Lords would agree that if the new code of practice is going to be a useful document and one which parents, young people and professionals can work with it needs to communicate its meaning clearly and be readily available. While any document which has to describe the law accurately may contain some text which has to be read twice, the department has striven to make the draft code as easy to read as possible.
We trust that we have abided by the principles of plain English as much as possible, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Sharp for her comments, which I will pass on to all officials who have been involved in its drafting. However the draft code is currently out to
consultation, and we are keen to receive suggestions for making any parts of the text easier to understand and will look carefully at any text which readers say they find difficult. Noble Lords may be aware that the current code of practice is accompanied by a Plain English Campaign Crystal Mark publication Special Educational Needs (SEN)- A Guide for Parents and Carers. We intend to publish a similar document for parents and young people along with the new SEN code of practice.
Turning to the second element of this amendment regarding the availability of the code on the internet, publication on the internet is now the department’s main method of publication, and I can reassure noble Lords that the new code will be available on the internet. We will also make sure that the code, like the consultation draft, is published in a web-accessible format, so that, for example, readers with visual impairments will have access to it.
I now turn to Amendments 207, 208 and 209 which relate to Clause 68, which is headed,
“Making and Approval of Code”.
The SEN code of practice is fundamental to the SEN framework and the noble Lord, Lord Low, is right to raise the issue of its approval, an issue which I know is of great importance to SEN organisations and many noble Lords. As noble Lords will be aware, ahead of the introduction of this Bill into the other place, the Education Select Committee carried out pre-legislative scrutiny on Part 3. One of the recommendations of the committee was that the code should be approved by Parliament through the negative procedure. We were in agreement, fully recognising the importance of parliamentary scrutiny of the code of practice, and we accepted the Select Committee’s recommendation. Indeed, we are now going further in response to a recommendation from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. We have tabled Amendments 210 and 211 to ensure that on the first occasion the new code is approved, it will be through the affirmative procedure, and for subsequent revisions, it will be through the negative procedure, recognising the significance of the new code in reflecting the new legal framework we have been debating.