Education Bill

My Lords, I, too, support the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in this very important amendment. I also support his suggestion that this will be followed by more substantive amendments on Report. Clause 1 is more about who things should be done to than what should be done. Here I declare an interest as the chairman of the all-party group on communication and language skills, which has been campaigning for years to try to get every child assessed to see that, in the words of the noble Lord’s amendment, children are ready, "““to enter school on reaching school age””." I would like to see guidance in the Bill on what assessment should be received by each child to ensure that they are ready and who is responsible for doing it. One problem I have found when trying to get this assessment done is who pays. The people who do the assessment come from the Department of Health, but it is the Department for Education which is putting this through. Some people at the Department for Communities and Local Government are involved, while some are from the Ministry of Justice. Who is going to do this? The best advice is contained in the excellent report published the other day by Dame Clare Tickell. In paragraph 3.22 of chapter 3, which is entitled ““Equipped for life, ready for school””, she recommends strongly, "““that the Government works with experts and services to test the feasibility of a single integrated review””," at age two to two and a half. That is excellent advice, which I hope will be taken up. Armed with that, then the work can be done to see what needs to be done to make certain that people are ready to back up the tone and the good sense of my noble friend’s amendment.