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Children's Plan

My Lords, this has been a brilliant and wide-ranging debate and I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I said at the beginning that there was an array of talent in your Lordships’ House today, and that has been shown by the passionate and effective speeches. I also thank the Minister for his considered response. We all know that he is not complacent. We shall have to return to the issue of implementation later, because we are all concerned about that. Noble Lords have spoken eloquently and raised a number of issues. I have a page of them here that I was going to read out; but if I did that, we would be here for another 20 minutes. I think that there has been a philosophical centre to this debate, which is about children being children in a holistic sense—from whatever background they come, and whatever their ability. Children do not come in bits. We have heard about them needing love, nurturing, attention, education—above all, parenting. We have heard about the importance of play, theatre, art, music, sport, in order that they thrive. Sometimes children need compensatory programmes to help them progress. That is partly what the Children’s Plan is about, and it is admirable. I still have concerns about implementation. I still have concerns that we must take on board the recommendations from various noble Lords and learn from good practice—we have heard quite a bit about that today. I am so concerned about those issues that I am inspired—with the approval of noble Lords—to suggest that we come back in a year’s time and look at this issue again, including how we are implementing new measures. With those words, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion. Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.