Education Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has just told noble Lords about Amendment 43 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, to which I added my name. Apart from saying that it is one that I support very firmly, I think that one can give only full-hearted support to almost all these amendments. Listening to my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham made me think back all those years to 1979. Before then, I became quite involved with autism. When my noble kinsman became Chancellor of the Exchequer, we gave Christmas parties for autistic children. They were very informative, if I may say so. They were enchanting children, but quite clearly with problems and needing a great deal of help. Where are we now? We now have a spectrum that is much bigger and more complicated. We have heard about ADHD, which, from what my noble friend said, has clearly not been as recognised as it needs to be to reduce the cost to everyone concerned—to put it on a level as basic as that. Not just in this area but in others, there have been many more such children over time. I do not know what that has to do with; maybe it is because parents have children earlier. One could say a lot about equal opportunities to make things happen rather more than they are at the moment. This is a major problem. Apart from doing the very best for every child, as with Every Child Matters, it is in all our interests to see that we provide the fullest possible life for these children as they grow up and to enable them to make the fullest possible contribution to society and each of our communities. I hope that the Minister, who has had an awful lot to think about today, can take all this on board on top of everything else—and, above all, draw it to the attention of the other place, which as has been said on several occasions has not given the matter that much attention. It may be that there is not the knowledge or experience there—I shall not say expertise—that so many of your Lordships have had and that enables them to shed a more penetrating light on the issues that are being looked at.