Perhaps I should start by endorsing the comments that have been made to avoid being repetitive. I, too, would like to welcome the duty being put on local authorities for short breaks. That is important and is something that the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign fought for. It is important to identify areas where there is no clear legal duty. The new clauses ask local authorities to consider only whether disabled children should have looked-after status. We have been through all the advantages of this measure.

I, too, have looked at the case studies, but have chosen two different ones, which I would like to refer to briefly because they add further points to those that have already been made about vulnerability. This is the example of Thomas:

“Now that social services have given Thomas looked after child status, social services deal with all the difficulties and I can be a parent rather than a social worker.”

I thought that that was the most striking way of describing the advantages of looked-after status. It goes on:

“I also have the energy to be more assertive and to make positive decisions which are in Thomas’ interests, so when we have meetings with the social worker and other people involved with Thomas’ care, I am able to assert my parental authority.”

That is so important. In its way, it is as important as the short breaks in helping the parent to hold together and do the best for their child.

Secondly, I thought that the case study of Mark was rather telling. It states that

“when the government set targets for local authorities to reduce the number of children in the looked after system, we were put under some pressure to de-classify him as a looked after child.”

These parents had to fight to keep looked-after status. That shows how a local authority can respond to something that the Government said for particular reasons in a way that is not acceptable in this day and age and in light of the current debate. It is important to have this legal duty in the Bill to show that every disabled child matters.