Member

On Amendment 165, I absolutely agree with those noble Lords who put their name to it and others who spoke on it that ensuring that the school and the GP are notified of the household including a child being placed in temporary accommodation is vital. I remember speaking when I visited a primary school up in Oldham, where there was a child in temporary accommodation who, it had been discovered, had a three-hour journey each way, with several buses to get to school, because they did not want to change the school that they were at. The description from my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham of children being at risk of being off-rolled sounded exactly like what might have happened with this child, had the school not known, because all too often buses did not run on time. Schools need to know this; they need to understand that, despite the parents’ or the child’s best efforts, they might be late, or they might be very tired in class, and to think about how they can best support them. I had thought less about the GP side of things, but the examples that the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, gave were very stark reminders of just how important those links are too.