Speech Therapy Services (Children)

I agree entirely. The hon. Gentleman has anticipated my next point. Speech and language therapists are there not just to help children, but to help the entire children's work force understand that communication needs to be the golden thread running through everything they do. They need to be equipped to train staff, teachers and others who work with children, as well as the children themselves. I ask the Minister to confirm that she will do all she can to ensure that we recruit more speech and language therapists to meet the unmet needs that are out there. The better communication action plan made a specific commitment to universal screening as part of the healthy child programme. Many major bodies, including the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, which I suspect has managed to get many supporters to attend the debate, wants to see that occur at age two and five, in advance of the reading assessment. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that that aspect of the action plan is taken into account? Another important aspect that is often overlooked is that when we discuss children's speech therapy we often think of those aspects that are what I describe as being high incidence, but low need. In other words, many children face communication difficulties, such as language delay, but their support needs are actually quite low. There is a much smaller group, which has much more complex needs, but the incidence of that need is relatively low. That poses a particular problem in commissioning. I wonder what the Minister's views are on how we balance those two competing aspects, because where there is low incidence but high need, it is often more of a health intervention, rather than an educational intervention, that is required.