The amendment would limit the circumstances in which a local authority could take action against an employer in its area to those concerning a failure to check that new employees resident within the local authority’s area were in appropriate training. Any failure by the employer to check in respect of new employees resident outside the local authority’s area would not be covered.

If a local authority discovered that an employer had not been making checks, it would not be able to issue a penalty notice unless the employees were resident in the same area as the employer, but it could contact the employees’ local authority and ask it to take action. If there were a large number of employees to whom the failure to check applied, that could be a very bureaucratic and time-consuming task for both the local authority, which might need to contact a number of other authorities, and the employer, who would then have to respond to penalty notices issued by more than one authority.

The amendment would unnecessarily complicate the system, which is designed to ensure that employers play their part in enabling and encouraging young people to participate in education or training. On that basis, I hope that the very reasonable hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings will withdraw his reasonable amendment.