My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lingfield for his amendment and for the eloquent way in which he put his important case. As my noble friend will know, we very much share his ambition to support young people with SEN and disabilities into university. We must have high expectations for these young people and provide the right provision and support through EHC plans to help them achieve their goals.
My noble friend pointed to the value of the disabled student’s allowance. DSAs, of course, are not means tested but are awarded in addition to the standard package of support and do not have to be repaid, and it is encouraging to see the take-up of DSA in this area. He is also right that we should do everything we can to ensure that young people get the support that they need and that the assessments for the new types of support build on what they had before rather than starting from square one—that was his key point.
Following debate on the issue during earlier stages of the Bill, we made some important improvements to the draft assessment and plan regulations, and to the draft code of practice. I hope that my noble friend will be reassured by those. The changes make it clear that local authorities must share a copy of the EHC plan with the relevant higher educational institution and with the DSA assessor—with the young person’s consent, of course—and that local authorities should make young people aware of the support available to them in higher education through their local offer, including the disabled student’s allowance, and how they can make an early claim so that support is in place when they start their course.
Our intention here is very similar to that of my noble friend. We want the valuable information contained within an EHC assessment to be shared both with the person assessing them for the disabled student’s allowance and with the institution they are planning to attend so that other provision may be made, as appropriate, in line with the institution’s own policies. I hope my noble friend will agree that creating further regulation in this area is unnecessary. I appreciate the flexibility of approach in his amendment.
The information within an EHC assessment is extremely valuable, but it will be only a starting point. When young people take up a place in higher education, they are starting a new phase of their education in which they will be expected to develop a different approach to learning. My noble friend recognised this. Higher education courses vary greatly in terms of content, delivery and assessment across institutions and subjects. It is therefore appropriate for a new assessment to be conducted to ensure that young persons get the support that they need in their new environment.
We are happy to look at the detail of the revised code of practice to ensure that we get the balance right, and we would be happy to receive any further advice from my noble friend in that respect. I hope that I have reassured him that we agree with what he is seeking to do, and I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.