My Lords, I support Amendment 40A moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and colleagues. We supported him on this in Committee and it would still be our first preference as it would add health and social care provisions to the list of matters in respect of which children, young people and families could appeal to the First-tier Tribunal.
This was first moved in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, as he just reminded us. I recall that he subsequently said, as he has just done so, that he was unsure as to the feasibility of this approach in terms of the technicalities. For that reason, because we may not be able to evaluate those technicalities at this point, we have tabled Amendment 40B, which I will refer to in a moment. I do not know if the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, mean that he would support that amendment but it has the intention of giving the Government time to resolve whatever the issues are.
As other noble Lords have said, the issue is simple: the Government want to establish an integrated system for meeting better the needs of disabled children and those with special educational needs. That integration would be at the point of assessment and planning education, health and social care. However, as the Bill stands, that integration is blown apart at the point of appeal. As we have heard, parents and young people would potentially have to go through three different routes of appeal simultaneously for the three different elements of their plan. Like the noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Rix, I sense that behind this is the considerable resistance from the Department of Health and the Department for Communities and Local Government to any change.
Having previously been a Minister for some time, I feel quite strongly that agencies should bend for the benefit of families. Families should not be imposed with the burden of mobilising three bureaucratic systems that just happen to exist. It is the job of all of us, particularly the Government, to make those agencies bend, albeit by negotiation and discussion, to make the system work for the people that we are here for.
In a letter to noble Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, said that the tribunal is only for special educational needs, and that, as we have heard:
“There are established routes of complaint about social care through the local authority complaints procedures”,
and, for health, to the health complaints procedure and the health ombudsman. That is not adequate, even if local authority and health appeals systems were simple—and they really are not, even for a Member of Parliament. I see the Minister for Children at the Bar and I am sure he will have tried to mobilise those complaints procedures on behalf of his constituents. It takes for ever, it is labyrinthine, it is completely not transparent and it is very bureaucratic. The idea of parents doing that on three fronts at once is simply unimaginable. There should be a single point of appeal and we support Amendment 40A.
However, should that not prevail tonight and the Government not accept it, we have tabled Amendment 40B which would require the Government actively to seek a way to secure a single point of appeal and to report back to Parliament within a year. That would keep the possibility alive. It would require the Government to do what they have not done and maybe have not had time to do so far: namely, to find a way to make this work for parents and families, to take on the resistance of those agencies and, if necessary, to change the law to establish a single point of appeal.
I am afraid that I do not share the optimism of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that without anything done this evening there will at some point in future be a single point of appeal. I was constantly surprised and depressed by the inability sometimes to change some of our big public organisations. Without the drive and initiative from this and the other place, I do not think that will happen. I hope the Minister will take that on board.