Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

As with Clause 40, we will keep coming back to this issue at unexpected moments during the next day or two. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has started off in such fine fashion. I am optimistic. The other day, the Prime Minister promised that every young child who started falling behind in reading and maths would receive help to catch up. However, it makes little sense to do that without having baseline, diagnostic pre-testing at the beginning or you will not know what falling behind means for any particular child. I was also encouraged by Michael Gove’s suggestion—I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will amplify it—that there would be a test at the beginning of secondary school. That, too, should be a proper diagnostic test, which should enable teaching at secondary school to be accurate and tailored to the individual and should enable an understanding of the problems that that individual brings with them. Here we have the Government proposing, I hope, a proper diagnostic test in primary school, my noble friend proposing it at the beginning of secondary school and the Irish doing something about it at the age of two, which is when some of the serious early-showing special needs, such as autism and speech difficulties, can be picked up. The pattern is set for a positive reply from the Minister, to which I look forward.