Education and Skills Bill
12:00 pm
Graham Hoyle: I really am undecided on this one. It is not very often I am undecided—I have normally got a view on most things, and not necessarily the correct view—but on this one, I really can see all the arguments. I have already said that the picture painted by having a statutory compulsory route to 18 and the reason for that is very strong and I support it and it has to be a great message, so clearly I like that bit of it. In some respects, if you have not got compulsion, do you actually mean the message—is the message real? That is a question that has to be addressed.
However, when you start looking at behaviour and what is actually going to make all of a cohort—all of a population—motivated to learn, compulsion is probably one of the weaker areas. So on that side it seems to me that for a minority—certainly I hope they are a minority—of youngsters, compulsion will not have the desired effect and you will accentuate a problem we have now. We have a problem with the NEET group—you know what it stands for—and it seems to me that at the extreme end compulsion might make it worse rather than better.
That is not a very helpful answer, I am afraid. We need to back up a strong message, but compulsion may not be effective means for the most vulnerable and most difficult group that we are struggling with at the moment.