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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I have been a governor of a special EBD school and I have done much work with children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. When the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, as Secretary of State, put through the Education Bill that gave rise to the big reduction in special schools, I fought it, because I believed that the Government were doing that to save money. I honestly think that it is difficult to treat this problem objectively, because there is a lot of money involved. I think that I shall support the Opposition’s amendment, because there is a need for an independent look at this problem free from political bias. The opposition Benches are bold in bringing forward their proposal; they may be hoist by their own petard if they were to take over the government of the country. The sort of processes that such an inquiry might introduce could lead to substantial increases in the amount of money that needs to be spent on special needs children—because it is needed. That is a different issue from the statementing process, which was a disaster when I was involved with it. Local authorities were delaying it because they knew that once children were statemented they would have to spend the money on looking after those children.