Mr. Bayley, I trust that, like the rest of us, you are refreshed after our short break.

The clause requires local authorities to arrange learning difficulty assessments for young people with statements of special educational needs who are expected to leave schooling during or at the end of the current school year. Every Child Matters and Youth Matters signal the Government’s commitment to giving local authorities responsibility for Connexions services, and those assessments are currently carried out by Connexions.

There is a statutory transition planning process for young people with special educational needs statements beginning in year 9 and continuing until the young person leaves school. Connexions, and specifically personal advisers, take the lead in supporting young people with learning difficulties at key points of transition. For example, the personal adviser might decide that a young person with learning difficulties would benefit from school-college link courses, or from work placements. Personal advisers also make sure that young people are aware of the various learning options, such as diplomas or the foundation learning tier, available to them.

Carrying out a learning difficulty assessment is part of supporting and planning for transition, working closely with professionals supporting young people with special educational needs to ensure that all the young person’s needs are fully met. In completing the assessment, the Connexions personal adviser works closely with the professional service that has been supporting the young person through school, and other specialists help. The personal adviser also works closely with the young person and their family and/or carers to ensure that the learning difficult assessment adequately reflects that young person’s needs. Once a young person has started a new course, Connexions will also follow through to check that the provision is suitable.

The transfer of legal responsibility for the assessments to local authorities would put local authorities’ accountability for them in law on a sure footing. The Bill widens the circumstances in which the assessments should be carried out to cover not only those who are leaving school at the end of their compulsory schooling, but those who remain in school after the age of 16 but subsequently leave to pursue education or training elsewhere. That might be the case if a young person wishes to remain in school to improve his or her GCSE results, for example, and a year later, having done so, wishes to attend college. Or it might be that a young person simply changes their mind about what provision best meets their needs.

The extension is a necessary measure arising from our reforms of 14-to-19 learning and the proposals to raise the age of compulsory participation in learning. It means that those young people who are subject to a statement of special educational needs who leave school to pursue further learning at any point after the end of compulsory schooling, rather than at the end of year 11, will have their future needs assessed.

The clause requires the assessment to be carried out at any point during a school year. For young people who have very clear long-term plans, the assessment would ideally be carried out in the autumn term of their last year of schooling, to support applications to colleges and other forms of higher learning. That will be set out in guidance to local authorities. However, some young people change their minds and decide to go into further education or training quite late in the school year, so it is right that the local authority should carry out the assessment at whatever point in the year is sensible for the young person involved. Stipulating a certain time in the year when the assessments need to be carried out risks local authorities missing hundreds of young people who make the decision to continue in learning after that point.

The amendment is intended to ensure that if young people with special educational needs in their last year of compulsory education change their plans at short notice, the duty to arrange an assessment applies. I am delighted to tell the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that this is already the case and that the amendment is therefore unnecessary. If a young person is of compulsory school age, the local authority is already under a duty to arrange for the special educational provision set out in a statement. It does not matter whether that provision is delivered in a school or in other appropriate settings, although the statement may need to be amended to take account of the new environment. During year 11, if the young person intends to carry on in further education, training or higher education, they will receive a learning needs assessment.

It is important to remember that the local authority must arrange for an assessment to be conducted at some time during a young person’s last year of compulsory schooling. That duty applies whether the young person has clear, fixed long-term plans or makes a decision, or changes their mind, in late August, say after their GCSE results. In the latter case it might be that, for practical reasons, the assessment is not carried out until early September, but that does not stop the duty to arrange the assessment from applying.

The amendment, as worded and as positioned in the clause, would apply only to young people in compulsory schooling. However, I am also happy to reassure the hon. Gentleman that, should a young person beyond the age of compulsory schooling decide that school is no longer the right environment in which to learn and transfer to alternative provision, either immediately or at the beginning of the next year, the duty will still apply. Again for practical reasons, if the young person leaves school at short notice, the actual assessment might take place after they have left and quite possibly are already undertaking alternative provision. That does not stop the duty from applying.

On the basis of that fairly full explanation, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.