Lord Addington (LD)

My Lords, I must apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, for missing her first few seconds. When someone said, “I want a quick word with you”, I should have jumped around them as opposed to trying to politely brush them off. All these amendments are looking at financial control. It is probably overdue, but it is extremely difficult. It is a case of transparency. We need something in here, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, has just pointed out, the Government are actually dealing with it on a last-minute, we-must-do-something basis. Having some control over that is an extremely sensible idea, but they will not get rid of the fact that it will have to be done through emergency contingencies or whatever. It is still going to happen that way. We are trying to extract from the Government the limitations of what they are proposing and to get it more on the record. On my own amendment—I probably should have slightly reworded it—of all the things accused of costing too much, special educational needs spending is probably right up there, and often it is the private sector. It depends on what you are dealing with, because there is not a right sum of money for that. I am on a committee looking at the Autism Act at the moment. I just went to see a school that had one full-time member of staff for every two pupils and TAs on top of that, because it is needed. Usually, the private support comes in to support somebody who has struggled in the education system—it may not be autism and it may not be that severe, but they are usually playing catch up and repair, to put it bluntly. So, they are going to have high staffing needs and it is going to vary from person to person. I would hope that this transparency may be a defensive thing from people who are providing a service that is needed.