Education Bill

I appreciate the Minister's intervention, which reassures me somewhat, but Lords amendment 37, on setting up pilot schemes, reassures me more significantly. I think we will find that more significant issues arise here. It is not sufficient, from my point of view, to say that because two thirds will accept it, it must be fine. Two thirds might well accept it, but that does not mean that the administrative problems and complexities will not have made their lives more complicated. People might say, ““Yes, I will accept it””, but it is not a straight choice leading to the accrual of untold benefits. There are costs and consequences from the decision made. As I was saying, I spoke to some parents in my constituency and they told me that they wanted a system that was easy to administer and wanted to ensure that support was available. They wanted to ensure, too—this was a point raised by the hon. Member for Cardiff West and others—that this was not an avenue to cost cutting. They wanted to make sure that Ministers understood the complexities of handling different panels, facing different options on statementing and having to look for disability living allowance, carer's allowance and so forth. Those are costs placed on individuals. Two thirds might well say, ““This is what we want to do””. That, however, with respect to the Minister, is not the point. The point is to make the system so simple and easy to do that everyone wishes to do it. I am not sure that we are at that point yet, which is why I welcome the proposal for the pilot schemes in Lords amendment 37. My other reason for welcoming the amendment is that, as I have said, I do not want a measure that constitutes an avenue to cost-cutting. I accept that the Minister and his colleagues in the Department are absolutely committed to maintaining support and funding for the most vulnerable children, but in the present environment, every good policy can be open to talk of cuts and reductions. We hear such talk almost hourly from Opposition Members, in relation to a range of topics. Some may have valid points to make, but it is generally understood that those who have borrowed too much money and are living beyond their means have to make cuts in certain areas. It would be devastating for the Government if the strong reforms that they want to make in regard to special educational needs, building on what the last Government did, became part of the debate about cuts. We can learn from a pilot scheme, and it will enable us to create a better system. Its mission should be to relieve parents of the burden of additional complexity. We should focus not on the take-up rate, but on reducing the cost to parents of individual budgets. That will help to ensure that the changes that are made bed down for the long term. Having commented on those three issues—the duty to co-operate in a changing environment, the need to ensure that school admissions do not become the Achilles heel of the move towards new academies and free schools, and the need to reduce the complexity of special educational needs individual budgets for the benefit of parents—I offer my support for the amendments.