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Special Educational Needs (Information) Bill

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case and I look forward to hearing her contribution to this debate shortly. We have now had 11 years of the gap between the rhetoric and the reality from this Government. I suspect that my hon. Friend has highlighted another example. When the Government come under enormous pressure we get platitudes from Ministers, and when we look at the detail we find that they do not add up to a row of beans. This is far too serious an issue for party politics. One of the great things about the Bill is that it has all-party support. There cannot be a single Member of Parliament who does not have, or know someone with, a child with special educational needs, and who therefore does not want to ensure that we make maximum progress in this area of policy. As the leader of my party said yesterday, we are the fifth most successful economy in the world, so why cannot we help those children with the symptoms of dyslexia at the earliest possible stage? I shall not make the point about alternative expenditure, because you have already told me not to make comparisons, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it is an issue of priorities. Do the Government regard this issue as a top priority or of secondary importance? The Opposition and—I am sure—the promoter of the Bill regard this issue as a top priority, and that is why we want some action now. We do not want a Bill weakened by making every aspect of it subject to a Minister's discretion. The game is to ensure that there is no justiciability. The Government want to keep this issue for Ministers to decide and they do not want to allow any opportunity for the courts to intervene. I am ashamed to say that this is my first contribution to the debate on this Bill. I have mentioned a school in my constituency that has made a lot of progress on this issue, with the support of active governors. However, my constituency also has the Shieling school, which deals with children with very severe intellectual handicaps, and the Portfield school, which is a residential school—