Clause 40
Education and Skills Bill
9:45 am
John Hayes (Shadow Minister, Innovation, Universities and Skills; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
Such is the enthusiasm of the of the Front-Bench team fielded by the Opposition that we can barely resist the temptation to rise in support of the amendments that we have crafted. I am delighted to accept my hon. Friend’s invitation to add to the few words that he offered in support of the amendment.
As we have heard, clause 40 enables local education authorities to issue attendance notices specifying the type of provision to be undertaken, a description of the course and details of where and when a young person should attend. According to the Local Government Association, there are four steps to that enforcement process. It says:
“The first step will be for the learning provider to try to identify and address the issues by providing additional support or identify alternative learning programmes.”
Secondly:
“If the young person drops out of learning, the local authority will have a responsibility to contact them and work with them over a period to identify appropriate alternative learning options.”
Thirdly:
“If the young person still does not engage”—
having been through that process with the local authority—
“they will be given a formal last chance to engage voluntarily”,
and the situation if they do not do so will be made clear. The LGA continues:
“The local authority will decide when the time is appropriate for this and will then have the power, to issue an Attendance Notice, specifying precisely the provision that the young person must attend, and where and when they must do so. Appeals will be referred to an independent adjudication panel, which the local authority will set up. The panel will review the steps that the local authority has taken to ensure that there had been sufficient opportunity and support to engage voluntarily. The panel would have powers to confirm or dismiss the Attendance Notice and to recommend the local authority to take action to meet the needs of the young person.”
Fourthly, according to the LGA:
“If the young person did not meet the terms of their attendance notice, the local authority could issue them with a Fixed Penalty Notice.”
We debated that issue during our extensive discussions about compulsion. The provision before us essentially means that action against the young person will be stepped up if those early attempts to engage them by means of adjusting what is available to them, properly informing them and providing support and encouragement, fail.
The fourth stage, according to the LGA, includes further measures:
“Appeals would again go to the same panel, which would confirm or dismiss the notice. If the FPN is unpaid the local authority would bring the case before a Youth Court, where the penalty on conviction would be a fine.”
That measure is regarded as the last resort, as the Minister said repeatedly when we discussed the issue before. The LGA states that if a fine is unpaid, the youth court has options beyond custody,
“including taking money from wages or imposing an unpaid work requirement.”
The Minister has assured us that no one will go to prison, but the process, although well defined and an accelerating one, ends with someone having a conviction—being a criminal in the sense that I have described.
Clause 40 does not require local authorities to have taken all reasonable steps to secure voluntary participation in education and training before an attendance notice is issued. Our amendment would clarify the position and ensure that young people were guided to the most appropriate education and training before any formal sanctions were used. That is the essential point. There should be a well understood, transparent and logical process, which accelerates the action that the local authority might take. However, there should also be an absolute requirement to avoid a formal process until such time as all other options have been exhausted.
I know that the Minister shares that view, because he expressed it earlier in our deliberations. It is critical that we encourage young people to commit to participation of their own will, because if they do so, there is a much greater chance of their succeeding—of seeing their training through and developing the skills that they need to become increasingly employable. The amendment would ensure that the formal process did not kick in until everything that could be—and, in my judgment, must be—done to encourage voluntary participation had been done.