Education and Inspections Bill

I rise to support what has just been said and to express my particular support for Amendments Nos. 7 and 9 in this group. One of the main aims of the Bill is to enable children to have personalised learning, which would entail local authorities having a statutory duty to ensure that the services are available. I am thinking in particular of services such as speech therapy which cannot be supplied by the regular teacher, however well trained. At the moment it lies in an ambiguous area because local authorities often claim that they cannot ensure the provision of speech therapy that children urgently need. Communication difficulties can be the most terrible obstacle for those children with severe disabilities in this area being educated in mainstream schools. Without learning the skills of communication, they really cannot possibly fulfil their educational potential. This is an example of where a statutory duty on local authorities to enable a child, "““to have access to such teaching and learning support as may be appropriate””," is a matter of crucial importance if the Government’s general policy is to go forward. I strongly support Amendments Nos. 7 and 9.