Clause 41

Part of Education and Skills Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 1:00 pm on 21 February 2008.

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Photo of David Laws David Laws Shadow Secretary of State (Children, Schools and Families) 1:00, 21 February 2008

Good afternoon, Mr. Bercow. May I welcome you to the Chair of the Committee? It has been noted that either you are a glutton for punishment, or Mr. Bayley has deserted us. We are not sure whether this reflects enthusiasm on your part or reticence on his.

In any case, we left this morning’s sitting at clause 41, when I was mentioning that the amendment is inspired and supported by the National Union of Teachers. The last time I moved an amendment that was supported by the NUT we had a tremendous triumph when the Government crumbled in the face of the force of the argument and acknowledged that it had to be accepted. I think that that is the only concession that the Minister has made so far on the Bill. We look forward to seeing that in the future.

I am optimistic, therefore, at this final stage of the week, that we might also persuade the Minister to accept this amendment, which is an addition to clause 41(5) that would strengthen the responsibilities of local authorities to identify individual needs and ensure that they are provided. In particular, the amendment would ensure that a local authority has to have regard to the

“age, ability, aptitude and needs...for personalised support and personalised learning” of the young person in question.

This morning, I also referred to a helpful letter that the Minister wrote to me on 13 February—I understand that it will be copied to members of the Committee—in response to the undertaking that he made at the evidence session on Tuesday 29 January to write to the Committee and talk, prior to guidance being issued, about the Government’s attitude to young people who would find it difficult to comply with the responsibility to be in education or training. In one sense, the Minister’s letter might not be regarded as directly relevant to the amendment, because it deals primarily with the circumstances in which an attendance panel would not insist upon a young person being in education or training. However, I would like to relate that directly to the  amendment and to the requirement that there should be a provision of support for young people, because the Minister’s aspiration, as he has already told us, is that in all but a minority of cases, young people should be in education or training or some other setting.

Therefore, we are seeking to discover two things in that regard. First, we want to know the extent to which there will be a clear responsibility on local authorities to ensure that the education and training relates very much to the young person’s needs and circumstances, and that that includes proper support for their personal needs. Secondly, we are seeking to discover the extent to which the Minister will be willing to envisage the type of fourth-way option or gateway option that some of us have talked about during the Committee’s proceedings and that many of the outside lobby groups have also talked about. I have in front of me a note from Fairbridge, which has given evidence to the Committee and has been talking about a gateway phase to re-engage the most difficult to reach.

The letter that the Minister sent to me on 13 February indicated that he accepts that

“there will be young people who temporarily, or for a longer time, cannot in practice participate due to their individual circumstances.”

He also mentioned the need to provide the personalised support that will help young people to be in education and training. He usefully documents a list of the types of characteristics that might cause an individual to need support services or potentially not to have to comply with the attendance panel. He mentioned homelessness, health problems, addiction, the nature and timing of the courses being studied, young parents and people with caring responsibilities. Although those may be reasons for a young person not to have the education and training responsibility placed upon them by the attendance panel, they could also be characteristics that should be taken into account in the clause in providing for personalised support.

Those characteristics could also lead to a fourth way that is not covered explicitly in the Bill, but upon which I would like to test the Minister’s mind yet again. That option is to have personalised support that would in no sense meet most people’s understanding of an education or training setting. These clauses and the amendments that we discussed under clause 40 are predicated on the basis that people will be in a formal education and training setting and that their personal support needs will be moulded around that.

The Minister acknowledged in our earlier exchanges that the Government might be willing to allow people to be not in education and training settings, but in some form of supported setting that would meet their needs prior to them being able to access education and training. We do not know whether the Government are willing to translate that good intention into practice. How these support needs will be met is in the hands of the guidance that will be issued later. That will show how flexible the Government are and whether they will allow people to be not in the formal education and training institutional environments referred to in these clauses, but in the other settings that were envisaged by the outside groups and voluntary bodies that gave evidence to us.

I do not expect the Minister to deal with the specific opt-out issues that were identified in his letter in relation  to the clause because they relate to other clauses. However, I would like him to confirm that for young people with high support and personal needs, the Government have in mind that there should be at least three options other than going before the attendance panel and being criminalised. First, they could be in the type of education or training setting envisaged in the Bill, but with the support that they require framed around their individual needs, as envisaged in the amendment. That option is the Government’s core desire for young people with great vulnerabilities.

Secondly, there is the possibility that the Minister raised in his letter of 13 February, that some young people with very acute needs might not be in any setting whatsoever. Thirdly, there is the other possibility that I am asking the Minister to comment on because it is relevant to the issue of young people’s support needs. I am asking whether there could be another option between doing nothing and being criminalised and having personal support delivered in an education and training setting, which would enable providers with expertise in this area to be involved. That could be a drug rehabilitation centre where there is nothing that would be regarded as accredited education or training, but where the young person would be in a setting that is dealing with a personal problem to enable him or her to go back into education or training.

This is one of the places in the Bill where we can explore with the Minister not only whether the right sensitive support will be available for young people in education and training, but whether such a different setting is envisaged. Given that we were so successful with our NUT-linked amendment, we would like to hear whether he is willing to put in the Bill this more robust form of wording to ensure that there is a strong duty on local authorities to consider all of the needs of young people defined in the amendment.

We would also like to hear how the Minister envisages the fourth option, or gateway option, working. Is it a serious option that the Government would consider as a mainstream alternative to what appears in the Bill or would they use it just as a short-term stopping-off point prior to a young person entering education and training with personalised support? That is what I am hoping the get out of moving the amendment.