Jim Knight (Minister of State (Schools and Learners), Department for Children, Schools and Families; South Dorset, Labour)

I beg to move amendment 313, in clause 64, page 41, line 12, after ‘perform’ insert ‘— (a)’.

Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendment 314.

Amendment 393, in clause 64, page 41, line 16, leave out ‘YPLA may’ and insert

‘Secretary of State, upon receipt of a recommendation from the YPLA, may’.

Government amendment 315.

Amendment 394, in clause 64, page 41, line 21, leave out subsection (4).

Amendment 395, in clause 64, page 41, line 24, leave out ‘YPLA’ and insert Secretary of State’.

Amendment 120, in clause 64, page 41, line 24, at end add—

‘(6) A further education college may inform YPLA if it is satisfied that a local education authority is failing, or is likely to fail, to perform its duty under section 15ZA of the Education Act 1996.’.

Jim Knight (Minister of State (Schools and Learners), Department for Children, Schools and Families; South Dorset, Labour)

It is essential that every young person is able to access high quality learning. That means that we must provide for the event that a local authority is not able to carry out its commissioning functions, and ensure that young people and providers in the local authority area are not disadvantaged because of that. Government amendments 313 to 315 support new local authority duties in relation to young offenders by giving  the YPLA the power to intervene if a local authority has failed, or is likely to fail, to perform its duties in respect of people subject to youth detention. Without the amendments, the YPLA would be powerless to ensure that those young people receive the education that they deserve under the circumstances.

Amendments 393 to 395 would give the Secretary of State rather than the YPLA the necessary powers to give directions to a local authority, when the YPLA was satisfied that the local authority was failing or likely to fail in its duty under new section 15ZA and the amendments to it. However, the YPLA is far better positioned to give those directions. The YPLA has a remit to ensure that funding achieves the best balance of provision to meet young people’s needs and that overall budgetary control is maintained. Clause 64 gives the YPLA supporting power to ensure that it is able to fulfil that remit. Fundamentally, the YPLA will work with local authorities, and it will have a strong regional presence and that understanding of what is happening on the ground. As we have discussed, the Secretary of State will appoint the members of the board and ensure that there is good accountability for the decisions that the YPLA makes, and therefore rather than having to pass these issues up to the Secretary of State I hope that the Committee agrees that it is more appropriate for the YPLA to make the decisions.

The intention behind amendment 120 is to ensure that colleges have a right of appeal to the YPLA if they are unhappy with the funding or commissioning decision taken by the local authority. I have already mentioned the provisions in clause 70 under which the YPLA must prepare and consult with appropriate persons on a policy statement that sets out the details of its policy on its powers of intervention. That consultation will give stakeholders such as the Local Government Association, local authorities, the Association of Colleges, individual providers, and other parties that have a stake in the success of local authority commissioning processes, the opportunity to ensure that the intervention policy is suitable and that the triggers for intervention are appropriate. The effect of the amendment would be to enshrine in legislation the ability of further education colleges in particular to inform the YPLA when they are concerned that a local authority is failing.

Although we understand the potential concerns of colleges in particular, this amendment does not provide sufficient latitude for others with a similar interest to have that same degree of statutory influence. Instead, we believe that the combination of clause 64 and clause 70 will mean that the intervention process ensures that there are the right triggers and levers for all concerned, not just colleges. We are working with those partners to develop a draft of such a strategy and I will be happy to share that with the Committee at the earliest possible opportunity.

I hope that, having given all those fine assurances and indeed continuing with the theme of clarity that I spoke about when we were discussing the last amendment, hon. Members will agree that their amendments are unnecessary.

David Laws (Yeovil, Liberal Democrat)

I am grateful to the Minister for anticipating a lot of what I might have said about amendments 393 to 395, amendment 120 and, if you will allow me,  Mr. Chope, because it covers similar territory, amendment 396, although obviously we will be formally debating that amendment later under clause 69.

I want to turn to amendment 120 to start with. This is the amendment that would give colleges a right of appeal to the YPLA if they are unhappy with a funding or commissioning decision taken by a local authority, which shows that even the Liberal Democrats can accept that occasionally local authorities will not be perfect.

I think that the Minister was saying two slightly different things. They are not necessarily inconsistent, but they are two slightly different reasons why he does not want to accept amendment 120. I think that he was saying, first, that amendment 120 would give appeal rights to one particular group that would not be available to others. However, I think that he was also saying that he felt that elsewhere within the legislation there would be mechanisms for dealing with local authority failure. I was not quite clear, though, whether he feels that the existing legislation formalises those rights of appeal for bodies such as colleges, or if they really rely upon the YPLA itself to identify from other information circumstances in which a local authority would be failing.

Presumably, there is nothing to stop a college writing to or notifying the YPLA about concerns that it may have. However, perhaps I could ask the Minister to clarify whether he really thinks that the existing legislation gives appeal rights that are clear enough and I also want to ask him if he would be willing to accept amendment 120 if it was more even-handed in relation to other bodies that might also want to exercise such appeal rights.

The other amendments—amendments 393 to 395, and the later amendment on clause 69, which is amendment 396—all seek to strike what we feel is a better balance between the authority of the YPLA and that of the local authority, which would essentially place a duty on the YPLA to seek a democratic mandate from the Secretary of State before exercising powers over a democratically elected council.

The Minister, perhaps understandably, expressed some concerns about whether all of these matters that a local authority was not delivering on would appropriately be passed up to the Secretary of State or the Department. However, I draw to his attention the fact that, in clause 64(4), there is already a requirement for the YPLA to:

“consult the Secretary of State before exercising the power conferred by this section.”

Therefore, given that there will be a duty on the YPLA to consult, will the Minister consider whether it is appropriate for the YPLA, particularly as it is an unproven organisation, to use the quite considerable powers that it will be granted by this Bill to exercise powers over a democratically elected tier of government, in circumstances where the Government are supposed to be championing what senior members of the Government have often talked about as “a new localism”? Here,  however, we seem to be giving really quite considerable powers to an agency, without there being any proper democratic oversight or any other democratic check.

Jim Knight (Minister of State (Schools and Learners), Department for Children, Schools and Families; South Dorset, Labour)

In respect of the hon. Gentleman’s last point, it is important that the Secretary of State is consulted, in order to deal with the point that he has just made that these are democratic organisations and that the Department should be properly aware of what the YPLA might do. As we see elsewhere, if we want an agency to be listened to, it needs to have some teeth—some sticks in the background alongside its carrots of funding, which it will be distributing liberally in accordance with local authority commissioning plans. That is, in essence, why the balance is right. I always reflect on what the Committee has debated to make sure that hon. Members have not pointed out a weakness contained in the Bill.

We are also working to develop a complaint and issue resolution process in relation to 16-to-19 provision and we are working with stakeholders, including the AOC, in the discussion and development of that complaints procedure. There are a number of broad principles that have been agreed with them about how that might work. It is important that that process is in place for the reasons that have been set out, beyond the fundamental principle, as set out in the clauses. It is important that there is an intervention policy which has been properly and formally consulted on—it is set out in clause 70—and that everybody understands how those processes will operate so that if interventions are then used, they follow a proper process and, if they are not followed, they can then be challenged in the courts.

I hope, on that basis, that the hon. Gentleman will be happy.

David Laws (Yeovil, Liberal Democrat)

I beg leave to ask leave to withdraw the amendments.

Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Conservative)

You do not have to do that, because we have a Government amendment before us, which is amendment 313.