Clause 10
Education and Skills Bill
1:30 pm
David Laws (Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Children, Schools and Families; Yeovil, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 165, in clause 10, page 5, line 32, leave out from ‘must’ to ‘persons’ in line 34 and insert
‘secure a sufficient and appropriate supply of provision for’.
We have reached a landmark. We have cleared chapter 1 and raced on to chapter 2. So, all hon. Members can feel reinvigorated that we have passed the first hurdle. The next chapter deals with the duties on local education authorities and educational institutions. Clause 10 is important, establishing the duty on local education authorities to promote the participation of young people in education or training in their area who are subject to the duty to participate. There have been many comments on the clause, which have led to this group of amendments, starting with amendment No. 165.
In a nutshell, most of the people who have made representations to us on the matter are concerned about the imbalance between the responsibilities on young people to comply with the obligations of the Bill, and the rather looser ones on local authorities to ensure an appropriate supply of places in order to allow the education and training option and perhaps other forms of support to be taken up.
The special educational consortium was one of the bodies that made representations to the Committee early on, indicating its concern about the balance of responsibilities between individuals and local education authorities. In a briefing note to the Committee issued jointly with the Royal National Institute for Blind People, on 14 January, it stated that:
“The duty is so general as to be unenforceable”,
and contrasted it unfavourably with the duty on young people, including the penalties and criminal sanctions contained in the Bill.
The amendment seeks to make the duty upon local authorities clearer and more general, in not constraining it only to education and training. The original clause provides a responsibility
“to promote the effective participation in education or training of persons belonging to its area”
to whom the Bill applies.
The amendment ensures that a local education authority is obliged to secure a sufficient and appropriate supply of provisions to those persons. Therefore, it not only provides a stronger requirement on local authorities, but opens up some of those fourth option solutions about which we were talking earlier, to ensure that support services other than education or training are being provided, which might ensure that young people can engage in the future with education and training. Other amendments, tabled by the Conservative party, deal in slightly different ways with the same consideration, including amendments Nos. 14, 84 and 148, to some extent.
However, there have been concerns that the Bill should go even further and the duty should be clearer. Therefore, we have tabled the amendment, which was suggested to us in a representation sent by the Special Educational Consortium, that other members of the Committee may have seen. It places an explicit duty on local authorities to ensure that there are sufficient and appropriate opportunities for young people in their area to participate in education and training. The consortium sets out some of its concerns, in particular that the needs of young people with disabilities are often not met adequately and they often end up leaving the education system at 16. It says:
“The Disability Rights Commission found that non-disabled young people are twice as likely as their disabled peers to transfer to the sixth form or college at 16 plus”.
It said that has a significant impact on life chances, and continued:
“By the age of 19, 9 per cent. of non-disabled young people are not in education, employment or training, but 27 per cent. of disabled young people are in the same category.”
That is a significant concern, particularly for that group of young people, although the amendment would apply to all those who would be caught by the duty. It would impose an obligation on the local authority to ensure a wide range of provision for all those youngsters who need it. We will talk about some of those groups in a moment.
The Special Educational Consortium said:
“We believe there needs to be a stronger duty on local authorities to secure appropriate opportunities for young people in their area. As the Bill is currently drafted, responsibilities fall disproportionately on individual pupils with criminal sanctions for those who are not in appropriate full-time education or training.”
It believes that provision should be better tailored to local needs, particular of young people with special educational needs.