Clause 10
Education and Skills Bill
3:00 pm
Jim Knight (Minister of State (Schools and Learners), Department for Children, Schools and Families; South Dorset, Labour)
Learner hardship grants are available separately from EMAs, as I recall. They are slightly more flexible than EMAs, which have a particular point of assessment, and I certainly foresee those continuing. Obviously we could have waited a considerable time and changed the sequence in which we legislated to do this. However, we thought that it was important to put the basic legislation in place to raise the participation age now so that the cohort currently in year 6 goes into secondary school with the expectation that they will carry on learning. Undoubtedly, there are unanswered questions and we have to be upfront about those. One of those is around financial support, but we are committed to ensuring not only that there is an engaging choice of worthwhile learning options, but that there will be financial support where it is needed to enable those learners to participate.