Clause 41
Education and Skills Bill
1:00 pm
Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire, Conservative)
I want to return briefly to a point that I made earlier. When it comes to the service of the notices that are created in clauses 39, 40 and 41, and the question of personalising the training and education opportunities, as in amendment No. 164, it is important that there is genuine engagement between the local authority and the individual concerned.
I am worried that a person who has left school with the sort of the problems that I have mentioned in Committee, who is perhaps able to read and write at only a low level—they might be at a lower level than one at which they would be able to tell their bank, for example, about a change of address—will find the notices complicated. A young person who is ill-educated might not understand the sort of details that are being talked about—the courses are called things such as basic skills or life skills. Will the Minister assure us that when the notices are served on someone who might have poor educational attainment, there will be a discussion with them to explain exactly what the notice means?
In answer to earlier questions, the Minister told me that there will be advisers—I accept that—but could there be some more formal legislative requirement to ensure that a person is notified, so that we do not have a situation in which notice after notice arrives at a person’s house and are ignored? Ultimately, such a person could find themselves in a serious process, in court and so on. I am concerned about the possibility of a paper trail but no active engagement between individual and authority. Will the Minister say whether the notices will be served personally or served by post? If it is not a personal service, will the panel require that a person has understood a notice? Will the Minister comment on those issues?