Baroness Barran (Con)

My Lords, I will speak to this amendment, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I thought, from the original groupings, that we were also going to talk about Amendment 502T, but I gather that is no longer the case, so the Committee will be relieved to hear that my speech will be even shorter. Like my noble friend Lady Spielman, I do not support the noble Lord’s amendment, although I accept absolutely that it is a real sign that a child or young person has been failed by both their family and the services designed to support them if they end up in police custody. But the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s guidance regarding the treatment of children in police custody is clear. It already states that children should not be held overnight in police cells, suggesting that time will typically be very limited in police custody. It is also clear on the role of the local authority where there are concerns about the child’s welfare, and the child’s right to have an appropriate adult present to explain their rights and help them understand the situation. In practical terms, even if we could magically find an educational psychologist to go to the police station, I question whether that really is a good time to assess a child for special educational needs and disabilities, since it is a particularly stressful situation. As my noble friend Lady Spielman said, very specialist skills are required for this. To reiterate, there is no high-quality definition of special educational needs and disabilities and no clinical definition. My noble friend already said that there is no clinical definition for neurodivergence. Currently, definitions of SEND vary from school to school and within different forms of SEND. This confusion would open the door to misinterpretations. For example, a child could have ADHD, but that does not mean that they are incapable of making decisions. With respect to the noble Lord, who is not in his place, I suggest it would be very hard to make the amendment work in practice.