Children and Families Bill

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my support to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lady Jones. I do not want to go over the points again as we are trying to move quickly, but it may be a case of weight of Members as everybody is agreeing with everybody at the moment, and it seems that most of the Committee has spoken against the Minister. To add to the number of voices, I want to raise two or three points that have not come out.

My noble friend Lady Jones said that these are amendments about children who are temporarily unable to attend school. Those children’s needs have not been addressed by either Government through legislation. There is widespread support for the Bill generally, as it deals with some of the most vulnerable children in our society. We are all on side on this, but for this group of children who are temporarily unable to attend school, there is no underpinning in legislation to help them. That is a problem. Even if the essence of the content of the amendments is unsuitable, the Minister needs to put something forward. If we do not do that in this legislation it will not happen, and the problems we have been talking about will continue.

We spend an awful lot of time trying to get children who do not want to go to school back into school. We take their parents to court. We have welfare officers who chase them. We bring them in and have mentoring, and so on. But here we have a bunch of children who want to go to school but cannot go for reasons of their mental health, bullying or whatever. We should think about that. If we were to put as much effort into children who want to go to school, but cannot do so temporarily, as we do with those who do not want to go to school, we would probably have a stronger education system. It is that sort of area that is missing. Anyone who has ever done any teaching will know that if a child has been away, it is almost impossible to help them catch up when they come back. The impact is not just on their learning but on the learning of the rest of the class. If we address this issue, we will be meeting the needs of vulnerable people.

I add my support to the Red Balloon argument. I, too, had the privilege of visiting a Red Balloon school in Cambridge. I went not as an enthusiast of online learning as I, too, thought that education was about mixing with children socially. An obvious point that I missed was raised. For some children who are temporarily out of school, it is the way to get back. If we can get children learning online, where they do not have to face other young people and adults, it is a stepping stone to getting back. Finally, whether we like it or not, there is an incentive in the system for schools not to purchase provision outside their own school. A statement for children who have special educational needs mitigates that incentive in the system for the school not to look to resources outside itself. For this group of children, the incentive is still there for the schools to handle it themselves. We need a bit of help on behalf of these children so that we incentivise, make possible or demand that resources outside the school can assist for what may be no more than a week or a month. If it is only for a week or a month, and the children continue to learn, it could do their future education a power of good.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I want to clear up a misconception that both noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Brinton, seem to have. Online and joined-up learning is available to schools because we have it for children with ME. I shall speak about it more on my amendment, but I want the Committee to know that local authorities can provide it.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 74, 127 and 217 regarding severely bullied children and the education of children unable to attend a mainstream school. I thank my noble friend Lady Brinton for raising the important issue of bullying and the needs of young people who are bullied. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, my noble friend has been a great advocate for children and young people whose lives have been blighted by bullying. Bullying in any form and for any reason is totally unacceptable and should never be tolerated in schools. Bullying can instil fear, damage self-esteem and reduce academic attainment. We have a considerable campaign in place to combat cyberbullying, which, as my noble friend Lady Walmsley mentioned, can be particularly unpleasant. As our reforms work their way through the school system, and behaviour management strategies improve—as I believe that they are substantially in schools across the country—that should help in this regard.

The amendments broadly cover three areas: a call for bullying to be defined in law; measures to prevent bullying happening in the first place and to tackle it when it does; and provision for those who are the victims of bullying, particularly those who are severely bullied.

The definition of bullying outlined in Amendment 74 suggests that bullying will involve an “imbalance of power” and is repeated behaviour that causes physical or mental harm. These elements are likely to be involved in many instances of bullying, but not all of them. The definition of severe bullying outlined in the amendment refers to behaviour that affects children so severely that they suffer trauma and psychological damage. There is a risk that that could cause confusion for schools, because the same bullying activity could be treated differently according to the effect that it has on the victims, rather than the act itself. Although we acknowledge that the support should take account of the effect, it is important that there is consistency in how schools manage the behaviour of pupils.

There will always be exceptions to whatever definition is put in place, which is why we consider that these matters are best placed at the discretion of head teachers and teachers. We outline what constitutes bullying in our advice to schools and we consider that that is the best place to do so, rather than through a strict definition in law. A legal definition could, among other things, rule out behaviour that common sense might suggest is bullying but may not be captured by a law.

Turning to my noble friend Lady Brinton’s point about guidance being in one place, it is of course important that guidance is practical and manageable for those using it. We are very happy to look at how the different pieces of guidance fit together and cross-refer, in particular, in the current consultation on the code.

Turning to preventing bullying in the first place and tackling it when it does, as different schools face different issues, we do not want to prescribe specific anti-bullying strategies. Instead, we want to allow schools and local authorities to address bullying in the light of the needs and circumstances of their schools and their pupils. I believe that our current position provides the right balance between requirements in law, flexibility for schools and strict accountability.

All schools must have a behaviour policy with measures to prevent bullying. It is up to them to develop their own strategies, but they are now clearly held to account for their effectiveness in doing so by Ofsted. Since 2012, it has been a requirement for school inspectors to take into account issues relating to bullying, harassment and discrimination. In addition, we provide schools with advice, with links to several anti-bullying organisations for specific advice.

Turning to provision for children who are bullied, the starting point should be the needs and welfare of children and young people and the state of their mental and emotional health. Schools and local authorities should provide support in a proportionate and tailored way to meet their needs. The new draft SEN code of practice considers that developing a graduated response to the varying levels of SEN among children and young people is the best way to offer support, and this can include the needs of bullied children. There is no separate legal status of a temporary statement. However, local authorities and schools are free to use key elements of the statementing process to make local arrangements.

The causes that affect the well-being of children and young people will be relevant to how those needs are best addressed, but are not the best guide to the level of need. A child’s well-being could be severely affected by a variety of things, including bereavement, family upheaval or severe bullying. It could result from a range of factors that taken in isolation a child could cope with, but taken together have a severe impact. It is important, therefore, to avoid creating a hierarchy of causes and prescribe what the response should be.

Schools know their pupils. They are alive to changes in behaviour, character and attendance. They should offer support quickly, based on the need they identify, and there is a wide range of options that they should consider, from asking the pastoral team to keep an eye out to providing formal counselling, engaging with parents, referring to local authority children’s services, completing a common assessment framework and referring to child and adolescent mental health services, including whether to assess for SEN. The circumstances that my noble friend describes will often need swift support. An EHC plan is intended for those with the most challenging, complex and long-term needs. This is reflected in the amount of time that it will take to deliver an EHC plan—a maximum of 20 weeks under the reforms. In many cases, offering a child or young person SEN support in the first instance will be much more appropriate, and faster. Giving a child or young person an EHC plan is a significant step and may not be necessary.

No child should ever be forced out of school because of bullying. In extreme cases, it may be necessary to make other arrangements so that a bullied child can access the good education they deserve.

In response to the concerns raised by Amendment 127, I should reinforce that local authorities already have a duty to arrange suitable education for any child who would not otherwise receive it. Suitable education is defined as,

“efficient … education suitable … to the child’s age, ability and aptitude, and … to any special educational needs the child may have”.

The duty covers all compulsorily school-age children who are not receiving suitable education. This could include pupils who are unable to attend a mainstream school because of bullying, but it is not limited by the reasons for a child being unable to attend school.

The duty is also not limited by the length of time a child will be missing education. For example, statutory guidance on the education of children unable to attend school because of health needs states that alternative arrangements should be put in place for children missing 15 days of school or more, whether consecutive or cumulative.

Separate statutory guidance on alternative provision, issued in January this year, sets out that parents, pupils and other professionals should be involved in decisions about the use of alternative provision. It also states that there should be clear objectives and arrangements for monitoring progress.

My noble friend Lady Brinton made a point about the shortage of alternative provision. I am delighted to tell her that already, under the free schools programme, we have approved 33 new alternative provision providers. So far as Red Balloon is concerned, I have met Carrie Herbert. I have initiated conversations between her, the department and the New Schools Network, and I hope that she has taken on board what they have said about any future applications she may make under the free school proposals. However, I cannot help but wonder whether such a bid, if successful, would be allowed under a Labour Government, as it would be not a parent-led academy but a free school run by professionals, as indeed are most AP schools and special schools.

I should like to consider and investigate further the point about disincentives made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, who I know is very experienced in these matters.

I hope that I have been able to reassure the noble Baroness that we are deeply concerned about bullying and bullied children. We have measures in place to prevent and tackle bullying, and the safety net she is seeking for pupils who are unable to attend school is already in place. I therefore urge her to withdraw her amendment.

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[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I very much agree. On the one hand, it is hugely important that there is early identification and early intervention. I guess that the move towards childminder agencies will ensure a more codified standard. However, there are some cracking, fantastic individual childminders. There is a danger that we will lose that whole body of people who do not want to be part of an agency but who have real talent and expertise, as we go headlong to have agencies which have to do all the following things. I am quite nervous about that move. As we have heard, district nurses and midwives have a huge part to play in early identification. We need to be very careful about how we move in that direction.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness in their amendments. When my elder granddaughter came to visit us, we found it very difficult to understand what she was saying. When she got to the age of three and a half my husband, who was a schoolteacher, was saying, “Huh, huh, huh” or “Ber, ber, ber” to her to try to get her to pronounce things. My daughter got into a furious rage and took her home, but then realised that the child could not communicate and was getting very frustrated because we could not understand what she was saying. She took her to a speech therapist. On the health service, it would have been 14 or 15 months before she could get help, so she took her privately. My granddaughter was diagnosed as being quite severely dyspraxic. She struggled through school but got her A-levels and is now deliriously happy at university doing a course in fine arts, restoration and conservation, which is right up her street. She was caught early, which is so important. She will have a career; everyone wants someone who can conserve things. She has been to the House and visited the conservators.

It is important that we catch them early. My granddaughter started off being able to speak at the age of nine months, but then had an accident involving a head injury that was not picked up, so midwives or district nurses would not have seen that. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness have an important point.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

I just say to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that I was referring to the assessment required now in the early years foundation stage, which must be carried out by health visitors. I was saying that that is a compulsory healthcare test. I was mentioning that the healthcare visitor to whom we spoke in Northern Ireland mentioned the value that she had had from being trained by the speech and language therapist to identify the particular triggers for speech and language difficulties, which I believe ought to be common practice everywhere.

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[Lord Patel (CB)]

My Lords, this amendment would add a new clause after Clause 23. It refers to Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 and seeks to improve it. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will find this a helpful amendment, as it seeks to do what he has been trying to do with his own amendments.

To summarise, Clause 19(6) of the Education Act 1996 would be repealed and after subsection (5) would be inserted a new subsection (5A), which refers to:

“Suitable education for children and young people”,

the definition of which would be inserted according to the wording of my amendment. The amendment would ensure that legislation and subsequent statutory guidance and regulations reflected the Government’s policy intention that all children, regardless of circumstance or setting, should receive a quality education as per the statutory guidance published in January 2013. I commend the Government for the publication of their guidance, and I shall come back to that again.

The reasoning behind my amendment is that Section 19(6) of the Education Act 1996 currently reads:

“In this section ‘suitable education’, in relation to a child or young person, means efficient education suitable to his age”—

it is always “his”, although it means “his or her”—

“ability … and to any special educational needs he may have”.

I consider that a more thorough definition of “suitable education” will help to achieve the Government’s aspiration for young children and persons learning in alternative provision, and it is that inclusion of alternative provision that I am seeking in the definition in the Education Act.

Alternative provision is defined as education arranged by local authorities for pupils who, because of exclusion, illness or other reasons, would not otherwise receive suitable education. This includes the education that a child or young person may receive in a hospital school, in a medical pupil referral unit or through home tuition.

The Committee may well be aware, since other noble Lords have referred to it, that CLIC Sargent, the UK’s leading cancer charity for children and young people, has found in a study that young people—particularly those with cancer, although it also applies to children with other diseases—who are receiving education in a hospital school or medical PRU setting while undergoing treatment do not receive a quality of education equal to those in mainstream education. Its research, published in the document No Child with Cancer Left Out, found that 70% of parents said that their child had very little education outside their normal school. In fact, to quote one parent of a child with cancer:

“We waited nearly a year for a home teacher who was brilliant, but it really should not have taken so long. Five hours a week home teaching is too little for a child in Year 6”.

Teenagers have also commented that the education they get is not appropriate for them at their age, or to help them get through exams. There is also a lack of funding from local authorities for home education.

I return to the Government’s intention, which I thoroughly support, and the statutory guidance for local authorities that they published earlier in the year. It clearly states that alternative provision and the framework surrounding it should offer good quality education on a par with that of mainstream schooling, along with the support that pupils need to overcome barriers to attainment. I agree that this support should meet a pupil’s individual needs, including social and emotional needs, and enable them to thrive and prosper in the education system. However, it is a statement of intention and good will, not a statement of a directive which the authorities may be obliged to follow. I hope that the Minister will see that strengthening the Education Act and defining suitable education more clearly may help.

I welcome the Government’s belief that,

“pupils with cancer deserve as good an education as any other pupil and poor health should never mean poor education”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/1/13; col. 576.]

A key part of this will be to ensure that children and young people who receive alternative education receive a quality education, and that all education provision is responsive to the diverse range of needs of children with cancer and other serious conditions. I hope that the Minister will see that this amendment of mine helps his intention, so that he might either accept it or bring his own amendment at a later stage to strengthen the Education Act. I beg to move.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I shall speak to my amendments; there is rather a long list of them. They are Amendments 154, 160, 178, 185, 187, 189, 193, 197, 205C and 218. It seems an awfully long list but they are very simple amendments, which all say more or less the same thing. I declare my interest as chairman of Forward-ME, as patron of a number of ME charities and as vice-chair of the All-Party Group on ME.

I first became interested in virtual education in 2004, when the Young ME Sufferers Trust, or Tymes Trust, developed an alliance with Nisai Virtual Academy Ltd, also known as Nisai Learning. Together, they developed an educational programme for young people who were too ill to attend school or who could attend only intermittently and who, as a result, were missing out on large chunks of their education. At a function in the House last year the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, founder-patron of the Tymes Trust, said:

“No wonder students with ME find concentration so difficult. When a student makes an effort, oxygen levels in the brain can fall instead of rising to cope with … demand. Obviously, it can be next to impossible to study effectively after struggling into school”.

He finished by saying that,

“students can be thought lazy, or just awkward when they are doing their best. Often staff do not realise why the student either can’t get to school at all or can’t concentrate on their work when they get there”.

Tymes Trust research has shown that,

“for young people with ME, the most effective form of education is home based, with interactive virtual education producing grades equivalent to, or higher than, other healthy students at school. The protocol that has been developed enables very sick students to achieve, when otherwise they are typically condemned to a recurring pattern of school attendance and subsequent relapse with little to show for it. They often feel that they are failures, when in reality it is the education system that has failed them”.

It is not just students with ME who benefit from virtual education, although ME is the biggest cause of long-term sick absence from school. There are young people with other medical illnesses who are not able to attend school, as my noble friend just said. Those with learning difficulties and emotional and behavioural disorders, those with disaffection with school or school-refusers, those who are excluded and sufferers from bullying, whom the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has so clearly defined, can all benefit from virtual education. Despite their myriad problems, those students, who would normally struggle to achieve any qualifications, find that a virtual environment is one in which they can flourish. This year, 91% of the students of Nisai Learning achieved GCSE and A-level qualifications, and 30.6% achieved A* to C grades. While this is below the national average, many of these students would have had no GCSE or A-levels under their belts.

The Bill focuses on provision for children with special educational needs who are in the main stream. That excludes some 100,000 children who do not have access to mainstream education, for some of the reasons that I have given. According to a BIS research paper published in January this year on the motivations and barriers to learning for NEETs—those not in employment, education or training—more than nine in 10 young people with experience of being a NEET are motivated to learn, while seven in 10 of the same young people looking for learning opportunities felt that there were barriers associated with access to education. It is intolerable that young people such as these should be left behind when we know that, with the right support at the right time, they can succeed.

Education outside the mainstream is often supplied by individual organisations that have created imaginative ways to help those who are excluded. However, the money assigned to a student while inside the mainstream system does not follow them once they are no longer on the school roll. That means that it is impossible for students to have access to alternative provision that would help them. The Bill gives us the opportunity to rectify that state.

Online and blended education mixes visual with auditory and verbal kinaesthetic modes of teaching, and ensures that children can focus on learning without the complications of external influences with which they may struggle. They are given a structure that supports them educationally and emotionally and which enables them to become economically independent. Online learning integrates a variety of learning styles, using teachers who have a comprehensive understanding of work processes and the special needs of students who have physical or emotional problems.

Students do not wake up one morning and decide that they do not want to learn any more; there are numerous factors that contribute to their lack of engagement. For children with ME with special educational needs, virtual education protects health and promotes recovery; results in better exam grades than a child with ME can otherwise achieve; costs less than home tuition; and can be accessed at any time of the day or night. The child remains on the school roll, and the school league table can include the child’s success. Very importantly, through virtual contact with other children in a similar position, children can make many new friends whom they are able to meet when they are well enough. As a sideline, I quote a note from a former head teacher:

“the purpose of education is to educate to the best standard possible; an attendance register is not a measure of achievement or success”.

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[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

I, too, support the two amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and I do so for one reason in particular. There is a real danger in the whole Bill that, by necessity—and I have no problem with this; it is what the Bill is about—we will be talking about structures, obligations and demands on people, and about trying to get the system right. We have always failed to do that in the past through successive pieces of legislation. The system does not quite work. There is a danger of forgetting that what will ultimately make a difference is the teaching once the system does work.

In terms of mainstream schools, I have always been a big advocate of talking more about pedagogy than about structures, because that is what will make the difference. We never quite get to that with special needs children because we always revisit the structures, the obligations and the legal framework. What I like about both the amendments is that they are about what happens when the structure works in terms of the quality of teaching and the learning experiences of the children who would access their education through these provisions.

I do not like the phrase “blended learning”. I am not familiar with it and it took me a long time to work out what it was. I had a few ideas, none of which was anywhere near the truth. Therefore, perhaps the wording is not quite right but the kernel and the elements of it are right—it is about what happens in the classroom once the system is working. It would be a shame to let this bit of the legislation go by without having a good debate on that to ensure that we give really clear signals that what we care about for children with special needs is not just that the structure works for them but that the quality of the teaching is appropriate and meets their needs.

On blended learning and online learning, we have not yet gained what we could regarding advances in technology and education. We have done so in higher education and further education but in schools we are lagging behind. For a long time, I have thought that the group that can most benefit from this are children with special educational needs, because of the technology and because of the need that there sometimes is to learn in more than one place.

These are two really good amendments. They put us into a different place when we come to talk about the education of special educational needs children. I hope that the Minister will reflect on them and perhaps discuss how the Government might take them forward.

[The Countess of Mar]

Perhaps I can point the noble Baroness to my Amendment 218, which has a definition of blended learning.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I support the amendments. When I first received the briefing about blended learning, I was slightly puzzled by it all. However, the deeper you get into it, the more appropriate it seems for many of the circumstances that we are facing, particularly with SEN children. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to find a way of supporting it, or of allowing it to be used in a number of different ways with the children for whom it is appropriate. I fear that, all too often, I am less than enthusiastic about the advantages of the internet and all the things that enable us to access all sorts of things online. However, if this can be a real plus for children with needs, I hope very much that it will be given a useful role and will be supported by the Government.

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The current provisions within the Bill maintain the position that, wherever possible, the focus of education, health and care plans should be on supporting children and young people to access suitable mainstream or special education. They do, however, allow sufficient flexibility for local authorities to specify alternative provision within a plan where this is in the pupil’s best interests. I believe that the current duties on local authorities and accountability mechanisms strike the right balance. We will, however, continue to work with organisations such as CLIC Sargent to ensure that statutory guidance on alternative provision supports the needs of all pupils. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I meant to do this in my initial speech: I thank the Minister and his department for the statutory guidance. Both the ME charities with which I work, which deal with young people, have been extremely grateful for it and are making good use of it. If we could get this embedded in the Bill or indeed into the system, that would be extremely helpful. I am grateful for his reassurances. I will read what he has said and think about it.

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comments, particularly the last ones that he made about working with the charitable organisations that work with children with cancers and other health conditions. My concern was not that he was not personally sincere about making sure that all these children got a good education, nor that the guidance already issued and the amendments that the Government have brought in do not go a long way towards making sure of that. My concern was that, while the intention is to ensure that all children get their education in mainstream education, which I agree is the best for them, there are times when these children cannot be in mainstream education because of their conditions. It is the gap that occurs—the provision that is not there to continue their education—that makes them fall behind when they re-enter mainstream education. It was in filling that gap that I was hoping to see whether I could be of some help through the amendments. However, I am reassured by what the Minister has said, and I hope that he and his team can work with those who are concerned to ensure that the guidance produces the required emphasis to make sure that this education for children continues in alternative provision. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the comments that the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, made about it, which were very wise and very important. Both those speakers have said what needs saying more ably than I can, and I am not going to repeat it. The only thing that I am going to raise with the Minister is whether this does not raise a question about the rather extraordinary wording of Clause 25(1):

“A local authority in England must exercise its functions under this Part … where it thinks that this would”...

Leaving aside the rather esoteric question of whether or not local authorities think, that enormously weakens the residual provisions in these clauses. It gives the local authority the excuse to say that it does not think that these things are absolutely necessary. I wonder whether the Minister might think about that.

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I was horrified to be pointed to the report by the Children’s Commissioner, Always Someone Else’s Problem. The executive summary, which I am afraid is all I have had time to read, says:

“We have found evidence of … pupils being excluded without proper procedures being followed; these exclusions are usually for short periods, but may be frequently repeated, meaning that the child misses substantial amounts of education … pupils being placed on extended study leave, on part time timetables, or at inappropriate alternative provision, as a way of removing them from school”.

It goes on to list other examples, which I am sure the Minister is familiar with, but the final one is,

“local authorities failing to deliver their legal responsibility to provide full time alternative education for children from the sixth day of exclusion”.

In the report the Children’s Commissioner says that it is mainly SEN children who are what she calls illegally excluded from school. I am very concerned that local authorities are perhaps not taking due care to ensure that this does not happen in their areas. This is an excellent amendment that would perhaps preclude this sort of thing from happening. From that report, it seems to be happening on a very large scale.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, we appreciate the concerns that have prompted the amendments in this group and noble Lords’ determination to ensure that we move things forward for children with special educational needs, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to the discussion. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for saying that the local offer has the potential to be transformative for these children.

We understand the reasons why the noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Touhig, seek the publication of an action plan if the education and social care is deemed insufficient. I assure them that there is already scope in our provisions for children and young people with SEN and their parents, and local providers, to be involved in improving provision where it is insufficient. Clause 19 clearly sets out the guiding principle of the SEN provisions, which is all about putting children, their parents and young people at the heart of what the local authority does. It sets out the importance of involving children, their parents, and young people as fully as possible, and includes the need to support them to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Children and their parents, and young people, are also central to the local offer. Local authorities will be under a duty to review their local offer in Clause 30(5) —noble Lords have made reference to that—and regulation 4 of the draft local offer regulations sets out who they must consult in such a review. Local authorities will also be under a duty to publish comments on the local offer under Clause 30(6). Noble Lords, again, made reference to that.

The noble Lord, Lord Low, was probing on accountability and how the review would then, as it were, have teeth. We understand the noble Lord’s points about accountability, and we will be discussing this in a later group. Perhaps we can return then to how that will be done. However, I would say that the local offer in Clause 30(6) will require local authorities to publish their response to comments that they get from children, their parents and young people, so there is a major incentive there to act.

That is also made clear in Chapter 5 of the code of practice, which says that local authorities should publish an explanation of the action they are taking to respond to the comments. It is not simply a case of publishing what that response is. This brings transparency—a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made previously—and potential publicity. We must bear in mind that local authorities are themselves accountable to their electorate. In the debate on the previous group, I mentioned other ways in which people could hold local authorities to account. However, I do not think that it is going to be very comfortable for local authorities to have to publish critical comments and to have to justify why they are doing what they are doing. That is certainly worth bearing in mind. As I mentioned, local authorities must consult widely and involve children and young people with SEN and the parents of children with SEN in shaping local provision.