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Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has just made a speech rather similar to the one I made just a few days ago when I asked the House to support an independent review on special educational needs. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has said that her party is nothing if not consistent. It would have been so nice if her party had thought about this in terms of consistency. Indeed, in the Commons only last week her party had a debate on whether there should be a major review of special educational needs. The response from the Liberal Benches by the shadow Minister, or the cross-party—I think she is called—shadow Minister for children and the family, was that there should be. It is deeply unfortunate that the Liberal Democrats are now asking us to support a major review of this kind on admissions, but seemed unable to support us on something so hugely important, which in the Commons they were crying out for only last week—a major review of special educational needs.