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Academies Bill [Lords]

I would love it if we had an autistic school in the heart of Portsmouth. However, what happens if the autistic school is on the other side of Dorset and suddenly somebody has to pick up the bill for sending a child there? It simply will not happen and this provision will not be there. This approach is okay in London, where travelling is not a problem. Setting up specialist schools for autistic children would be great in closely defined neighbourhoods, but if these schools have to cover a large area, they will be very expensive to set up, extraordinarily expensive to staff and expensive for local authorities to fund places for or for parents to have to pay for.