Baroness Barran (Con)

I thank the Minister for her very detailed reply and for her commitment to write; that is much appreciated. To respond to the Minister’s remarks, the reason for tabling Amendments 135, 136 and 137 is that the improvement plan is for the parent company or parent undertaking, but it is for when there are concerns about two or more of their establishments or agencies, in the language of the Bill. I understood that to mean, given the severity—that Ofsted suspects that there are grounds for cancelling the undertakings registration—there could within that be concerns about the safety of children in those homes. So the spirit of Amendments 135, 136 and 137 was that we should have really experienced people, either inspectors or Regulation 44 visitors, going in, not to inspect the parent—I am sorry if my amendments were unclear in that regard—but to inspect the subsidiary undertakings. Maybe when the Minister comes to write, she could just reflect on that point. In the reference to Regulation 44, the amendment should have stated that “Ofsted may issue an improvement plan notice”, not “the local authority may issue an improvement plan notice”. Of course, the Minister is absolutely right—the local authority cannot issue an improvement plan notice. But again, it was just trying to get at the idea that, if there was a variation in the levels of concern and the level of breach, for a lower-level breach, a Regulation 44 visitor could advise Ofsted. There is an urgency, if it is thought that an undertakings registration should be cancelled, which will not be met by the improvement plan approach on its own. In relation to the Minister’s remarks about Amendments 138A, 138B and 138C, I think the answer is that, if the process works reasonably quickly, the proportionality that she set out is completely reasonable. If it gets bogged down, and it comes down to, “We sent you a plan, Ofsted doesn’t think the plan is fit for purpose”, and it goes back and forth and back and forth, we would not get the speed that might be needed to prevent other local authorities commissioning a provider when there are grave concerns, as set out in the Bill. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.