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Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I wish to express my disappointment at the comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. I am sure she is instructed elsewhere to say that she cannot support anything that contains resources implications. This is an area that we should all be seriously supporting. Every child who has a serious communication disability should have the right to the equipment to enable them to communicate. Local authorities have the responsibility to provide aids to people with disabilities to enable them to take part in civil society. Those aids need to be with the child the whole time from the beginning of their communication learning. To say they cannot take them home is to deprive them totally of their social life at home. Any good educational establishment—and I am sure Ofsted would look at this—will ensure that not only the child but the parents are helped to understand how to use the communication aids, otherwise when the child goes home they cannot interact with their parents. How do we look across at other legislation on the provision of aids in local authorities that means that any disabled person who needs such a facility should be provided with it? There must be similar provision within education legislation that enables children to communicate because they cannot do so in class. I watch very disabled children using complex equipment while they are being taught, and who are therefore enabled to speak. Otherwise they can make no communication at all.