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Academies Bill [Lords]

I understand the hon. Lady's point, and there are many deficiencies in the wider SEN system. My concern is that if the issue of low incidence SEN is not defined properly, the situation will be made much worse. In some respects this is not a party political issue, because we are all here to do the best that we can for children with SEN and their parents, whose lives are a struggle without making things worse. We have lost good specialist services over the years, when funding was delegated to schools but they did not buy the services back. I have learned to my cost, when these things have happened, that we simply cannot get those services back quickly. Teachers of the deaf and the visually impaired and blind do not hang on the back of cupboard doors; they take years to train, and it is hugely expensive. Building those services back up once they have gone, particularly if the local authority does not have the funding to do so, will be impossible and will severely disadvantage these groups of young children.