Special Educational Needs

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I certainly take the noble Lord’s suggestion on board and will recommend that to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, because we are in a learning period. This is a new and fundamental change to the way that the process is handled. Again, I reassure noble Lords that the process is not dramatically worse than it used to be. It is a huge change. One reason for increasing the number of appeals was that in April last year we extended the scope of tribunals to include health—until then, only education was covered. Before the new regime came into place, between 2008 and 2014 the number of tribunal cases went up every year, except for one year when it dipped by just five.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government seem to be taking comfort from the fact that the majority of appeals are dealt with, but the Question was about the minority who wait up to three years. Should we not address that straightaway?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, as I said in my Answer, the local authority cannot withdraw support during an appeal period.