My Lords, I have much sympathy with the amendment, particularly the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, about those who do not have EHC plans. As she rightly said, we are talking about a large number of children—a much larger number of children than will have EHC plans—and it is important that there are facilities to meet their needs. The onus is now on schools to provide those facilities, but we know that traditionally, schools have relied considerably, first, on local authorities to help provide them and, secondly, on health authorities and, for that matter, social services to supplement them.
At the moment, there seems to be a void in the Bill on the question of how more specialist facilities are to be provided. The joint commissioning arrangements, as identified in the Bill, are fine, but at the moment they are targeted at those with EHC plans; there is no mention of those without them. I think that the idea is that what is available will be spelled out in the local offer—I look forward to what the Minister has to say when we discuss the local offer. At the moment, there are a lot of loose ends and, given the number of children and young people involved, I hope that the Minister will take the matter seriously.