Clause 10
6:15 pm
John Hayes (Shadow Minister, Innovation, Universities and Skills; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
These Liberal Democrat amendments are designed, as the hon. Lady said, to ensure that the appropriate frameworks meet the disability accessibility standard. You will not be surprised to learn, Mrs. Humble, that I am particularly concerned about that, given my interest in disability issues. It is right to ensure that students with learning difficulties are not excluded from apprenticeships and that frameworks are fully inclusive. The Liberal Democrats have done the Committee an important service by drawing this to the Minister’s attention and giving him an opportunity to comment on it.
Organisations representing the needs of disabled students support the argument. They make the case that a prescriptive stance on qualifications may disadvantage some disabled learners and that eligibility should be broadened beyond qualifications. However, Skill has also critiqued the lack of statutory guidance in the implementation of assessments in sections 139A and 140 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000. That critique could prove pertinent to these amendments. Skill argued that there was little to no guidance on how local education authorities would identify and assess all learners who needed a learning difficulty assessment, which professional should carry out the assessment and how to identify those with hidden or progressively worsening learning difficulties. The amendments will suffer a similar fate, but having said that, I still think that they serve a purpose in highlighting these matters and by giving the Minister a chance to respond.
The reason for the critique is that it is easy to assume that disability is static; we think, for example, of someone with a spinal injury permanently confined to a wheelchair or someone with a permanent sight problem. However, many disabilities are dynamic in nature and their changing condition changes people’s learning needs and capabilities. Legislation must always be sufficiently flexible to take account of those changes. That would be a reasonable rationale for amending the Bill; nevertheless, the fundamental argument behind the amendments—that we need an inclusive programme of vocational learning and apprenticeship frameworks for disabled learners—is well made and deserves amplification and explanation in the Committee.