Learning and Skills Bill [H.L.]

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 7:15 pm on 8 February 2000.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Baroness Blackstone Baroness Blackstone Minister of State (Education and Employment), Department for Education and Employment 7:15, 8 February 2000

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rix, for allowing me to reply to this group of amendments. I am perfectly content if, following my reply, the noble Lord wishes to raise issues related to other amendments in the group. A good deal of support for these amendments has been voiced in all parts of Chamber. I hope that what I am about to say is not misconstrued. Once again, it is not that we do not sympathise with and support a great deal of the thinking that underlies the amendments. However, there is a more specific difficulty with the amendments.

Clauses 2, 3, 31 and 32 place the councils under clear duties in respect of persons aged 16 and over. They include persons with learning difficulties or disabilities for whom the councils must have particular regard because of Clauses 13 and 40 respectively. Further, as part of the councils' duties they must take account of the varying abilities and aptitudes of different persons. The Government recognise that those needs, abilities and aptitudes do not suddenly change overnight on a person's 19th birthday. No one would expect a young person who is part-way through a GNVQ not to be allowed to complete his or her course. Likewise, nothing in these provisions prevents learners from continuing their education, whether it is secured under Clauses 2 or 3 or Clauses 31 or 32.

Where a person over the age of 19 has learning difficulties which have delayed his progress or ability to complete a course we do not want his or her opportunities for learning to be diminished; far from it. We want that person's opportunities to continue to learn to be enhanced and supported. We want to build on existing good practice. In further education, many adult students with learning difficulties already successfully undertake courses in a range of areas. Currently, arrangements enable effective support to be provided to students, including carers of various kinds and signers, material in alternative formats and so on. Students are also supported to attend specialist institutions where their needs can best be met in that environment. That will continue and will provide the basis for the LSC's work in this area.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Rix, the LSC is to be set up to meet the needs of those with learning difficulties as a priority, and so it should be. Unlike existing arrangements under the FE Acts, this Bill does not require consideration to be given to mainstream provision before a specialist place can be sought. It is not the intention that young people should be required to take provision that does not meet their needs. We shall consult on the arrangements that the LSC will develop in this area. That said, where possible we wish young people with learning difficulties to learn with their peers. I am sure the noble Lord agrees that, where possible, that should be encouraged.

I accept that Members of the Committee can cite instances where individual learners such as I have described have not had the opportunity either to complete or to undertake the course of their choice. However, the arrangements that we propose in the Bill enable the LSC to provide effective support for them. I am in no doubt about the importance of the LSC exercising its duties under Clauses 2 and 3 in a way which reflects the need for students with learning difficulties to be able to complete their courses, perhaps having started at a later age than some of their fellow students or needing a little longer to complete them. I intend to issue guidance to the LSC to underline and reinforce that point.

We do not, however, believe that Amendments Nos. 27 and 156 are required to ensure that the needs of such learners are met. Their effect would be to give everybody up to the age of 25 who has learning difficulties an entitlement to post-16 education and training. As many Members of the Committee will be aware, some people have relatively minor learning difficulties and their ability to learn is not significantly impaired. The consequence of the amendments would be to give them priority at the expense of other learners, some of whom may have much more significant problems due to terrible past experiences in their lives. These people come from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds of one kind or another.

I turn to Amendments Nos. 38, 47, 159 and 160. I recognise the concern of noble Lords that persons with learning difficulties should have access to the full range of educational opportunities that is available to other students.

One of the changes introduced by this Bill is an end to the unfortunate and artificial divide created by Schedule 2 to the FHE Act 1992. The duties of the LSC and the CETW are not hindered by this divide. Indeed Schedule 2 will be abolished: it is going. The duties extend to all forms of post-16 education and indeed throughout this Bill we have sought to define education so as to have the widest possible meaning.

To qualify the definition in this way may possibly call into question that wideness of interpretation elsewhere. Clauses 2, 3, 31 and 32 place the councils under clear duties in respect of all persons aged 16 and over. I want to reinforce what I said earlier. That will include persons with learning difficulties, for whom the councils must have particular regard because of Clauses 13 and 40 respectively. There really should be no doubt that the education to be procured by the councils include both vocational and non- vocational education, not just for those with learning difficulties but for everyone.

Of course I accept what has been said by the noble Baronesses, Lady Blatch and Lady Darcy de Knayth, that vocational education can be especially important for those with learning difficulties and indeed also with other disabilities. But while sympathising, as I said earlier, with what lies behind these amendments, I do not actually think they are necessary. I hope that, in the light of the reassurances that I have been able to give, those with their names to these amendments will feel able to withdraw them.