The three speeches/headings immediately before

1. 1 earlier: Iain Wright

   With the leave of the House, may I say that I am pleased with the tone of the responses from the hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) and for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams)? The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings rightly said that he wanted to see the linking of transport with other provision, and we absolutely agree with him. That was always the intention, as I think he knows, but we just needed to make it explicit in the Bill.

   The hon. Member for Bristol, West made an important point about complaints. We want to become more responsive to local complaints, in relation not only to transport duty but to a whole range of other local authority activities, in order to ensure that local authorities improve the services that they offer to the people they serve. We think that that is best achieved by going through a local process before going to the Secretary of State.

   Clause 54 creates a new power for local authorities to amend their transport policy statements in-year, in response to complaints or direction by the Secretary of State, and to publish updated statements and a description of the change. However, we shall require complaints to go through a local complaints process first, before they can be considered further. During the passage of the Bill, we were lobbied by the Association of Colleges and by Skill, and we think that the amendments will help to address their concerns. The key point is to ensure that local authorities are accountable to the people they represent, and we believe that it is important for these complaints to go through a local process, so that the authority has an opportunity to respond to them and to react to any concerns. If the person concerned—either the person with learning difficulties or disabilities, or the person charged with their care—is not satisfied, however, the escalation process, which should be a common feature of all complaints procedures, will give them recourse to the Secretary of State. To give the hon. Member for Bristol, West a direct answer to his question, we do not want to dictate the point at which any escalation takes place; we want to give people the opportunity to resolve any problems locally, as that is the best way to ensure that services are better locally on the ground.

2. 2 earlier: Stephen Williams

   I have a couple of questions about the operation of the provisions in Lords amendment 64, which will give the young adult learners that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) has just mentioned—as well as their parents and, presumably, carers—the right to complain. Will the Minister explain in what circumstances he or his successor would seek to intervene to direct a local authority to amend its transport provision? As I understand it, the amendment does not mention a mechanism by which the learner, or their parent or carer, can appeal if the local authority does not respond in a positive way to their concerns. How does the Minister envisage the amendment working in practice, if it is accepted?

3. 3 earlier: John Hayes

   I am grateful that the Minister has conceded that the Bill has been improved in this area too by consideration in Committee and in the other place.

   Lords amendment 56 inserts a new clause, entitled "Provision of transport etc for persons of sixth form age: duty to have regard to section 15ZA duty", which says:

   "In section 509AB(3) of the Education Act 1996 (provision of transport etc for persons of sixth form age in England: matters to which LEAs must have regard)...insert...what they are required to do under section 15ZA(1) in relation to persons of sixth form age".

   In other words, the Bill places a new duty on local education authorities to set out in a transport policy statement the arrangements that they will make for those learners aged 19 to 24 inclusive who may have a learning difficulty. The amendments will allow the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance to cover not only the new transport policy statement for learners aged 19 to 24 with learning difficulties and disabilities, which is introduced in proposed new section 508G of the 1996 Act, but the wider adult transport duty to which the Minister referred.

   The amendments are also intended to make a link between the local authority commissioning duty outlined in the Bill and the sixth-form and adult transport duties, so that local authorities do not consider their transport arrangements—particularly their arrangements for those aged 19 to 24 with learning difficulties and disabilities—in isolation from their new responsibilities for commissioning education and training provision. In essence, this is about linking transport to the rest of the provision, and that is critically important. When the Bill was first discussed in Committee here, we felt that that link had not been sufficiently well made, and we argued—here and in the Lords—that the Bill needed strengthening in that regard. We are happy that the Government have accepted the Lords amendments to ensure that students with disabilities have the same rights of complaint about transport issues as 16 to 18-year-olds. That is a practical and sensible change to the Bill. It is not a matter for partisan debate or a matter of contention, so I shall not detain the House any longer.