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Special Educational Needs (Information) Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their support today. It has been a humbling experience to hear the wisdom and experience of noble Lords who are far better informed than I about the needs of children with special educational needs. I am particularly honoured to have had contributions from those with such fine records in this area as the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and the noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Addington. The response to the Bill has been a mixture of the practical and the visionary. This was summed up in the contributions of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Morris. The visionary is seeing the Bill as a very important step towards making progress for these children, whose needs have been articulately set out by both noble Baronesses; the practical is to remind us of the difficulties, the limitations and the complexities that lie ahead. I am grateful to both noble Baronesses for that. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord James, too, for reminding us of how far we have come and the importance of early and proper diagnosis of special educational needs. I am very grateful to the Minister for his support, for his assurances of how the Bill will work in practice and for setting it in context with the other major and welcome initiatives being undertaken by the Government in this area. It has been an honour and a pleasure to work with Sharon Hodgson MP, my honourable friend in another place, and her colleague, Jonathan Tanner. Their passionate commitment to this issue has made an impression on parliamentary colleagues and throughout the campaigning charities. I am most grateful to them for their support. The point has been made several times today that the Bill is simple and modest—and that is absolutely right. But it will not have a simple outcome; it will have an important outcome for children with special educational needs. That is what we all want, as is evident from the welcome cross-party support. On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.