Clause 16

Part of Education and Skills Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:25 pm on 19 February 2008.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Nick Gibb Nick Gibb Shadow Minister (Education) (Schools) 4:25, 19 February 2008

The Minister need not look so exasperated. This is a crucial clause and I do not think that he is selling his argument well. He needs to try harder, because it seems to me that he is looking at these clauses as though they were law and order provisions.

If a young person is engaged with the local authority, then that young person will volunteer the information about the problems they are having with the police or probation service. He or she will volunteer the problems they are having with their health. However, the Minister is assuming that the young people in question are not engaged, otherwise the information would not need to be passed behind their backs. If they are not engaged, then the swilling around of all this information will be irrelevant, and that has a sinister air to it; that this information about those people—unbeknownst to those people—will be swishing around from authority to authority, from state body to state body.