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Education and Inspections Bill

It is a welcome change of heart. The orthodoxy after Warnock—and after an Act that was passed, I have to say, by a Conservative Government—obliged many parents to send their children into mainstream schools because the lack of availability of special schools meant that they had no option. I take the Minister’s point, which he made previously, that he appreciates that some children are better educated in special needs schools because of the concentration of resources, the environment that they create and all the good things that happen in, for example, the Priory school, Garth school and Gosberton House school in my constituency. I am pleased to tell him that I was involved in the recent campaign in my constituency to save the Garth school from closure.