 House of Commons |
Session 2007 - 08 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Education and Skills Bill |
Education and Skills Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Nick
Walker, Tom Goldsmith, Committee
Clerks
† attended the
Committee
Public Bill CommitteeThursday 31 January 2008(Afternoon)[Hugh Bayley in the Chair]Education and Skills BillClause 1Persons
to whom Part 1
applies
Amendment
proposed [this day]: No. 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, at end
insert
‘;
and
(d) who agrees in writing, on ceasing
to be of compulsory school age, that it
applies.’.—[Mr.
Gibb.]
1
pm
Question
again proposed, That the amendment be
made.
Mr.
John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): I
thought that I had lost the brief note of what I wanted to say, but I
managed to find it over lunch, so I can pick up where I left off when
the Committee adjourned this morning. I ought to issue a word of
warning: it is really a housekeeping note, Mr. Bayley, to
say that I am, as some colleagues will know, very deaf and my deafness
is exacerbated by the fact that I have a heavy cold. I will be pleased
to take interventions, as I always am, but I cannot guarantee that my
response will bear any relation to the question or
interruption.
Mr.
Hayes:
That is a harsh judgment from the hon.
Gentleman. Perhaps I should have said that my
response will bear even less relation than usual to the thoughts of the
person who intervenes on
me.
I
was saying that NEETs—young people not in education, employment
or training—whose number has grown so dramatically and
tragically, face a cocktail of circumstances that are of grave concern
to those of us who take an interest in these matters, as all hon.
Members in this Committee do. The first ingredient of that cocktail is
the declining demand for unskilled labour. Lord Leitch, in his report,
is clear about that, as the Minister and others will know. I have his
report somewhere, but I know it off by heart. He says that demand for
unskilled labour will fall by 2020 to some 600,000 jobs. There are
debates about the detail, but what is certain is that he is right about
the trend, so if people do not have skills, they face a decreasing
likelihood of being employed. It is worth saying that in the 1960s
there were probably 3 million to 4 million unskilled jobs in the United
Kingdom. The feature of an advanced economy is that it needs advanced
skills, and the future of the British economy is in high-tech
high-skilled
industry.
The
second ingredient of the cocktail is the high levels of illiteracy and
innumeracy, by which I mean functional illiteracy and innumeracy, which
were discussed
at some length both this morning and during the evidence sessions. My
hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire, who is not in his
place, has, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton said, done the Committee proud in focusing on that
matter, because it is critical to our discussions about skills and
post-16 education. I shall make three points about that
specifically.
First,
of course there is a relationship between the problems that have been
mentioned and methodology. My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis
and Littlehampton has made something of a personal crusade of his
passion for synthetic phonics, but he does so knowing that the way in
which we teach people to read, write and calculate is critical to their
success. He is right to say that there was a period when those
fundamentals were
neglected.
I do not
take the view that there is a single method of teaching people those
core skills that should prevail in all circumstances. I am a fan, as I
guess you are, Mr. Bayley, of “Janet and
John”; you will remember them from your childhood. I am a fan of
those “Look and See” books—which we all
enjoyed—not simply because of the marvellous old-fashioned
imagery that they contain, which is useful for inculcating certain
values in children—my children are benefiting from
that—but because look and see has a place in the business of
teaching children to read. We may disagree on this, but I take the view
that we need to apply a range of methodologies—those most suited
to the individual child and that child’s progress. That is true
across the subject range.
When training
to teach history—it was in the relatively recent past; the
Committee will know that I am a mere stripling—I was
disappointed to find that the chronology of history was so out of
fashion that the dominant orthodoxy was built around the teaching of
themes, with almost no reference to the progress of history. We need to
teach the themes of history and its chronology. Similarly, in the words
of the hon. Member for Blackpool, South, there is a marriage between
teaching skills and transmitting a body of knowledge.
There is truth in what my hon.
Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton says. Although
some of us believe in that marriage, for a long time the chronology of
history, the core elements of core skills—the body of
knowledge—was neglected by our education system. It gave way to
what my hon. Friend describes as an ideological concentration on a
range of progressive methods. Although it is certainly true that we
should take a balanced view about these matters, the balance of
argument tips in favour of my hon. Friend, given the history of the
past 40 years.
The third
ingredient in the cocktail—the first being the decline in demand
for unskilled labour and the second high levels of functional literacy
and numeracy—is the import of large numbers of unskilled migrant
workers. It is a myth that most of the people we import into Britain
are skilled. Most of them are not skilled in the way that we would
wish; for example, many do not have language skills, and many have to
acquire skills on arriving here. However, that is not necessarily or
implicitly a bad thing.
There has always been a demand
for itinerant labour in my constituency because its economic profile is
heavily weighted towards agriculture, horticulture and
the food industry. Nevertheless, the NEETs, who are central to our
consideration, are competing with more people than ever for fewer
unskilled jobs because of the number of migrants. Even in a
constituency such as mine, which has a profile of low skills
and high employment, unemployment among the indigenous population is
rising. That is bound to be injurious to community cohesion, as it will
breed resentment, particularly among young people between the ages of
16 and 24 who cannot get their foot on the employment
ladder.
That is the
cocktail faced by NEETs, and it is one to which public policy makers
must pay regard. In doing so, it is legitimate that we debate whether
compulsion is necessary to encourage the type of re-engagement that we
all seek in order to give people the skills that they need to gain
work, to access further educational opportunities and to engage in
training. However, compulsion surely must be a last resort.
I agree with my hon. Friend the
Member for North-East Hertfordshire and the hon. Member for Yeovil that
it is what young people want that really matters, and not what they
ought to do or be. Unless we can encourage in them a thirst for
learning or an appetite for training, I suspect that our endeavours
will be unsuccessful. That encouragement depends upon a curriculum that
they perceive to be relevant—relevant in terms of economic need
and the skills base required to meet that need—and one by which
they are inspired to progress. Good teachers have always understood
that: good schools and good teachers inspire learners.
I am not sure that the case has
yet been made convincingly that the alternative to obliging people to
stay on would be fruitful. Having said that, I have no philosophical
problem with the measure; some do—I suspect that the hon. Member
for Yeovil does. His is a perfectly laudable and defensible position. I
do not have a big philosophical problem with compulsion—at least
not at core—because the arguments for liberty are often
exaggerated.
Mr.
Laws:
Will the hon. Gentleman clarify something: is he
saying that he is not a liberal
conservative?
Mr.
Hayes:
I am not a liberal in any sense. I must not digress
too much, but I have been asked a direct question and I will give a
direct answer. As a student of these matters, the hon. Gentleman knows
that the great philosophical clash is between a conservative and a
liberal perspective. That has been the great clash of ideas through the
18th, 19th and the last century. We could debate the essence of that
difference at great length—although we should not do so
now—as it lies at the heart of the political tension that has
driven public policy and this place for 300 years. We could, and no
doubt will, talk about aspects of that in relation to the Bill, because
a debate is to be had about the balance between obligation and liberty
and the proper tension between freedom and duty. It is good to have
that debate in connection with this legislation because it is rare that
a Bill is introduced that embodies the essence of that
tension.
Mr.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool, South) (Lab): I know of the
hon. Gentleman’s deep interest in those matters, but I have the
Chairman’s beady eye on me so I have no intention of going down
that particular route in detail. However, when the hon. Gentleman says
that he has no philosophical objection to the principle of compulsion,
my ears prick up in the context of the Bill. What evidence would it
take to demonstrate to him that, as a last resort, the principle of
compulsion is the right and proper thing to do in the context of the
Bill?
Mr.
Hayes:
That is in the second half of my speech, which I
shall come to some time this afternoon. In my mind—I am speaking
very personally—there is no fundamental philosophical argument.
I make that statement from an academic perspective rather than a
practical political perspective. I have many reservations about
compulsion, which I have described as a last resort. As my hon. Friend
the Member for North-East Hertfordshire and I have said, it is better
to inspire and engage young people through voluntary involvement.
However, more than that, I have real doubts about whether the Bill will
work. Let me say
why.
Mr.
Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con): Does my
hon. Friend agree that even when one considers a matter of liberty and
liberalism, it is still important to consider where the necessary
practical accommodations can be made? The balance between what works
and liberty is the issue for the Committee and is at the heart of the
tension that he has described. That is outlined well in Burke’s
speech on conciliation with
America.
Mr.
Hayes:
If we want to have a philosophical debate, for
wider reading purposes, the case has been well made by Burke, Disraeli,
Oakeshott and more recently Scruton. For the sake of the Committee, the
practical arguments are paramount. We could reject the Bill or amend it
wholesale purely because of the doubts of the hon. Member for Yeovil,
which I have already described as reasonable,
laudable and undoubtedly perfectly sincere. I admire the clarity of his
position. We can also have doubts about the Bill purely on the
pragmatic grounds that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East
Hertfordshire suggests, and those, in the end, may be more
significant.
1.15
pm
In public
policy terms, I suspect that it is whether something works that makes
the difference between a bad and a good law. Is the measure necessary,
does it work and can it be done? I am not sure that any of that can
convincingly be argued about the clause, which is why we have tabled
the amendment.
There
are fundamental weaknesses in the training system. We would be creating
extra demand on an unreformed system. I have no doubt that the Minister
will rise to his feet with the
alacrity for which he is renowned and say, “This is not being
introduced immediately. We have time to make the necessary changes. We
will indeed reform the system in a way that can absorb and cope with
the extra demand.” If the Minister were to do that, I would
respond by saying, “You have had 10 years to do it, and you have
not made much progress so far.”
There are real weaknesses in
the way we deal with vocational education and training in this country.
In truth, the Minister, the hon. Member for Blackpool, South, who is a
great expert on such matters, and others sometimes explicitly
acknowledge that, and they may acknowledge it implicitly more
frequently.
We know, for
example, that the apprenticeship system, which the Government have
reported on very recently in a new review, has real flaws and problems.
The picture of an apprenticeship that you have colourfully painted in
your own mind, Mr. Bayley, is of an eager young apprentice
learning a vital competence by the side of an experienced craftsman in
a workplace. That is how most people regard an apprenticeship. However,
many apprenticeships do not meet that ideal. Many do: if one gets on to
an apprenticeship course at Rolls-Royce, Honda, British Telecom, or a
host of other large organisations and many small and medium-sized
companies, that is precisely what happens, particularly in areas such
as the construction and engineering industries.
The growth of
level 2 apprenticeships has, to some extent, extinguished some level 3
qualifications. If we look at the graph, it is clear that level 3
qualifications have declined steadily since 1999 and level 2 have
increased. The growth in the apprenticeship programme has meant that,
as Alison Wolf, Hilary Steadman, Alison Fuller and other academics have
argued—they did so again in the evidence sessions—some
apprenticeships are disconnected from the world of work. Some schemes
are not mentored, many do not have sufficient workplace element, and
some have no employer engagement at all. They are virtual
apprenticeships. That does not do any favours to learners or
employers.
The
Government, with an implicit acceptance of the problems, are now
reviewing the system yet again, after at least three previous
significant reviews, many of the recommendations of which have not been
acted upon. Nevertheless, we give this latest review a fair wind
because we want the apprenticeship system to work. It has some
strength, but it does not deal with the central problem, which is that
the Government have a centrally driven, target-based, controlling
ideology when it comes to organising training. A system that was
devolved, responsive and employer-led would be more appropriate because
it would be more sensitive to genuine workplace need and the skills
necessary to fill that need.
The
Chairman:
Order. It may be helpful to set some boundaries
to the debate. The amendment is about the voluntary principle. We will
have plenty of opportunity later to debate the Government’s
broad training policies, and rightly so, but I want the hon. Member to
focus on the nature of the amendment, which is whether individuals of
the relevant ages should have such an
opportunity.
Mr.
Hayes:
I am delighted to do so, Mr. Bayley. If
we compel people to stay in training, it must be fit for purpose. That
point has been made repeatedly thus far,
not only when the Bill has been scrutinised by the
Committee, but in the evidence sessions. Government Members have argued
that, in the end, compulsion can be legitimised only when the offer is
appropriate. The hon. Member for Yeovil was concerned about the
imposition of compulsion; we can argue for its imposition only if in
return we offer people provision that will enable them to learn skills
that will genuinely make them more employable. That is the trade-off.
If there are doubts about the offer, compulsion is
delegitimised.
The
case that I am making—falteringly and imperfectly— is
that the offer is imperfect in all kinds of ways, because the system
has not been reformed to a degree sufficient to deal with the extra
demands, or even with the current demands. We know that because if we
measure our nation’s skills against those of Germany, France or
the United States, we will find that we are wanting in intermediate
skills, higher-level skills, and in those basic skills about which my
hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire has spoken at
length. We have a problem with so-called life skills and the readiness
and willingness to work. The system is faulted, and you will understand
why that is so central to the case for the amendment, Mr.
Bayley. Our doubts about compulsion stem precisely from our doubts
about the
system.
Given
your strictures, Mr. Bayley, I shall not elaborate further
except to add two other elements to my case for why the system cannot
deal with demands that compulsion would create. The
second—beyond apprenticeships—relates to the quality of
the vocational offer leading up to the age of 16 in schools, which
inevitably relates to what children and young people do afterwards.
Speaking in my official capacity, I want to put it on the record
unequivocally, so that there can be no doubt during future sittings of
the Committee or elsewhere, that the Conservatives welcome vocational
diplomas. I welcomed them sitting next to my hon. Friend the Member for
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton—I see him more often than I see
my wife—when they were introduced in a Committee like this. The
Minister will remember that we did not argue against vocational
diplomas—indeed, we welcomed them. It was probably in this very
room; you may have been in the chair, Mr. Bayley. We did so
because it is absolutely right that we improve the quality of
vocational education in
school.
I noted the
comments of the hon. Member for Llanelli. I think she was right to say
that we sacrificed vocational education for a long time. Insufficient
emphasis was placed on it in schools. We came to believe that the only
form of accomplishment was academic, perhaps because most of us are
academics. Most of those who make public policy are people who have
followed the academic route: O-levels, as they then were, followed by
A-levels, degrees, perhaps further degrees, and then into public
policy. Because of the underestimation of the value of vocational
learning, it played second fiddle in most schools and for public policy
makers.
I welcome the
diplomas because they give us the opportunity to elevate vocational
education in the orchestra. It becomes a significant player, and no
doubt the Minister is about to intervene to tell me
why.
The
Minister for Schools and Learners (Jim Knight):
The hon.
Gentleman persists in describing the qualifications as vocational
diplomas, which is not
language that we use any longer because it is important that they have
rich academic content as well as rich vocational content. Does he agree
that it is possible for a qualification to have
both?
Mr.
Hayes:
Some qualifications have to have
both—indeed, most skills need both, although it could be argued
that some vocational skills are entirely unacademic. At both school
level and beyond, the chances are that acquiring a vocational
competence involves some academic elements. That is true of all the
vocational competences relating to engineering, to give one
example.
One
of the ways in which colleges attract people to core skills courses is
by offering them vocational courses. If people want to be carpenters or
plumbers, they must be able to read, measure, weigh and so on, which is
why an implicit academic offer is part of such courses. Notwithstanding
that, we should be proud of the vocational character of diplomas. I do
not want them to be academicised. The reason there is so much emphasis
on academic education is that we are embarrassed by vocational
learning. I want us to be proud of vocational learning so that it can
stand alone. I want us to understand that practical accomplishment can
deliver individual work and is good for the community and the nation. I
am not convinced by the addition of extra diplomas. They are
unnecessary not only because they compete with A-levels, but they are
an implicit
attack—
The
Chairman:
Order. I say this quite genuinely to
help the Committee. We will be discussing, under
clause 3, level 3 qualifications; under clause 4, appropriate full-time
education or training; and under clause 5, full-time occupation. It
would be a great shame, and it would not serve the Committee well, if
we reached those clauses and found that all the arguments that could be
deployed about the quality of education had already been covered more
generally at the start of the debate. I hope that we can concentrate on
the central principle of voluntarism to which the amendment refers and
save the debate about the quality, nature and parameters of training
for the appropriate part of the Bill.
Mr.
Hayes:
I shall speed back to that specific area,
Mr. Bayley, with your advice and guidance in mind. We cannot
indeed debate such matters at great length not do I think that any
member of the Committee should underestimate the breadth and depth of
the resources on which to draw to debate the matters at seemingly
inexorable
length.
However, one
further pertinent matter is important to the amendment. Much of the
debate on compulsion is about advice and guidance. It is crucial to the
Government’s case that, if people are compelled to stay on
between the ages of 16 and 18, they are advised in the right way and
follow the right path. We have been told that repeatedly. If they were
compelled to stay on and found themselves in school doing something
that they had failed previously in the way described by my hon. Friend
the Member for North-East Hertfordshire and were becoming increasingly
disillusioned by learning, that extra two years as he suggested would
do more harm than good. It is possible to extend the compulsory age of
education and do more damage to particular individuals than to add any
value. We should not assume that, by extending the time people spend in
formal education, we necessarily and inevitably add to the likelihood of
inspiring the thirst for learning that we have been
discussing.
1.30
pm
Critical
to the Government’s case—I am mindful of the fact that
the amendment qualifies their argument, given that we have agreed that
there is little debate about the principle of greater
participation—is the question whether people will be advised and
guided in the right way, and the evidence is not good, is it? That
evidence includes the Department’s own study, which we shall no
doubt discuss later, and the work by the National Audit Office. It also
includes the House of Lords Economic Affairs
Committee report, “Apprenticeship: a key route to skill”,
which I have to hand, although I do not know whether you have had a
chance to read it, Mr. Bayley. As all these studies make
clear, the current arrangements for advising young people at and beyond
school are not fit for purpose. Given those doubts about the current
system—about the training offer, the vocational route in school,
the advice and guidance, and the clarity of the pathway that we want to
establish, which should match the clear academic pathway—I hope
that the Committee will give the amendment serious consideration. It
would be irresponsible to move forward with compulsion before we are
certain that such matters have been properly dealt with.
In conclusion—hon.
Members will be sorry to hear that I have abbreviated my remarks, and
the Minister was certainly looking to me to continue until at least tea
time—the argument that I suspect we shall have in many forms
over the coming days and weeks will be built around such doubts. There
is understandable hesitation about our restricting people’s
liberty without being able to offer them an equivalent benefit. Such
doubts lie at the heart of the philosophical divide and the healthy
tension that we discussed earlier, and which we shall perhaps have a
chance to discuss again.
Jim
Knight:
Let me take this opportunity, as others
have done, to welcome you to the Chair,
Mr. Bayley, now that we are moving into the more traditional
setting for a Public Bill Committee. Obviously, I extend the same
welcome to Mr. Bercow. We all look forward to serving under
what you have already shown to be your most sensitive and astute
guidance. You will ensure that we remain on the subject that we are
supposed to be talking about, as far as that is possible for Members of
Parliament.
I also
welcome the shadow Ministers. I was first appointed to my position as
Minister of State with responsibility for schools at 5.30 pm on a
Friday, and I was in Committee—probably in this room—at
about 9.30 am the following Tuesday. We were considering the Education
and Inspections Bill, and I was most grateful for the indulgent way in
which my comments were scrutinised in those early sittings, as I strove
rapidly to get up to speed with what on earth it was I was supposed to
be talking about. I look forward to working in that spirit again with
the hon. Members for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and for South
Holland and The Deepings.
It is also a pleasure to debate
these issues with my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Yeovil. It is
a great pleasure that other members of the Committee will be able to
add their wisdom and their obsessions.
Indeed, we heard a bit of both this morning, and I was particularly
struck by the expertise with which my hon. Friend the Member for
Llanelli was able to draw on her experience as an inspector and a
teacher. I was most pleased that she was on my side, rather than on the
other. I look forward to working with the Minister from the other
Education Department, the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation,
Universities and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, who
will be working with me as the Committee
proceeds.
I
assume that we will not have a stand part debate on the clause, so I
will make some relatively brief comments on it. I will then address the
debate in all its glory and then briefly and directly address the
amendment. It has long been our ambition as a nation for our young
people to continue in learning until they are 18. As we heard on Second
Reading, the Education Acts 1918 and 1944 stated that young people
should continue their education, at least part-time, until the age of
18, although those provisions were never implemented. It is time to
make a reality of this historical ambition; the school leaving age was
last raised in 1972 and the world has changed a great deal since then.
That is not to say that we should again be raising the school leaving
age, but we should be raising the age at which people should be
continuing to participate in educational training.
We have heard
many of the arguments in favour of that. We know that continuing in
learning post-16 has significant benefits for individuals, for the
economy, for society, and increasing participation post-16 is therefore
already one of the Government’s key priorities in education. We
know that young people who continue in education or training are more
likely to gain further qualifications by 18 than those who go into jobs
without training or drop out altogether. People with qualifications
find it easier to gain and keep employment, and earn more over their
lifetime than those without. I am grateful to the hon. Member for
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton for quoting some of the statistics on
the extra earnings that people get just by securing level 2
qualifications. The individual benefits in turn translate into gains
for employers and the economy as a whole.
Our ambition is to realise
those benefits for all young people. Every young person has the right
to start their adult life equipped with the knowledge, skills and
attributes that they will need to succeed. Without compulsory
participation, the young people who are least likely to participate
voluntarily are likely to be those who are already the most
disadvantaged and therefore have the most to gain. I will return to the
issue of compulsion, as that is the main subject that we are
discussing, once I have addressed the wide-ranging issues in the
debate. I will be arguing that compulsion should be a last resort, in
agreement with the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, but
that beyond the effect that it might have on individuals in motivating
them, more importantly, there is a galvanizing effect on the whole
system and a cultural effect, much in the same way as seat belt
legislation changed the culture around road safety. In that case it
took a little while for some of the true impacts to be felt—if
that is not too much of a pun—but it has reduced the extent of
injuries on our roads and has been successful in changing driving
culture.
The
hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton gave an interesting and
wide-ranging speech. Much of it focused on the importance of pre-16
learning and improving the quality of education even further than we
have already done over the last 10 years, to ensure that all learners
have more momentum through their learning, to take them past 16 and
carry on until they are 18. He quoted, as he did when I was questioned
by the Committee last Tuesday, research from the National Foundation
for Educational Research. That research found evidence that there are
benefits to increased voluntary participation in education and in
training. It found evidence that there are benefits to increased
compulsory participation in education. I concede that there is
currently no evidence of benefits to compulsory part-time training, but
equally, there is no evidence to suggest that there is no
effect—there is no evidence either way. If we are an
international trailblazer in the area, I am not shy about it: I am
proud that we lead the way. As other countries continue a trend of
legislating in the area, between now and when the legislation comes
into effect, we will seek to learn from their experience. The hon.
Gentleman also said that he was not convinced by the causal link
between teenage pregnancy and non-participation. We do not claim a
causal link, only that non-participants are more likely to experience
teenage pregnancy. Education increases aspiration, and rates of teenage
pregnancy are a pretty good measure of low aspiration among the young
people concerned.
You will be
amazed to hear, Mr. Bayley, that we discussed issues about
whether people were reading and writing well enough when they left
school. I hope to have dealt with some of that through interventions,
but I can add that there are a huge number of things that will happen
with regard to the reform of the pre-16 school system between now and
2013, when the measures for young people start to bite. For example, at
primary level we have introduced the Every Child a Reader programme. We
are rolling out the Letters and Sounds programme developed by Sir Jim
Rose, which I know is supported by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton, given his obsessive advocacy of synthetic phonics. I was
surprised to hear that the hon. Member for South
Holland and The Deepings was not such a rigid advocate of synthetic
phonics and saw merit in some of the other options, but I am
sure that that difference will be resolved on the Conservative
Front Bench. Perhaps he was not speaking officially at that
point.
As well as
those, and many other changes at primary level, we will introduce
personal tutors in order to improve the transition between primary and
secondary education as set out in the children’s plan. Those
tutors will be a constant thread that will run through the secondary
school career of young people to assist the communication between home
and school. My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli talked effectively
about her concern that the individuals in the class who miss out will
be those that the teacher does not notice, those that keep quiet and
keep out of the way. The introduction of personal tutors alongside the
progression pilots that we are working on will ensure that a light
shines on every child in the country and that they progress through
their secondary education.
Mr.
Heald:
I welcome what the Minister is saying, but I have a
question about transition. For most people, the question of reading and
writing—which I
keep going on about—is moving up from the
infants school to the junior school, at which point there should be a
good look at how people are going and whether anyone is falling behind.
Are there any plans to tackle that?
Jim
Knight:
Sir Jim Rose, who carried out
the review that resulted in Letters and Sounds, is currently carrying
out a review of primary curriculums. We have asked him to look at the
transition from early years learning into more formal learning, and how
we can smooth out that transition—it is a little clunky at the
moment and that disengages some people—and then see the
transition all the way through up to primary age. We look forward to
hearing what Sir Jim has to say, and I am sure that we will look
sympathetically at what he recommends. Beyond personal tutors, the
social and emotional aspects of learning have worked extremely well at
primary level, and we have started introducing that programme at
secondary level. As well as teaching young people about behaviour and
respect, it is giving them some of the skills that will enable them to
find school more enjoyable and more engaging and to get on better with
their
peers.
1.45
pm
We have a new
secondary curriculum, which some are critical of but which is much more
flexible. It will come in this September and it trusts teachers to
pitch their teaching at the level that their class will find engaging.
It allows subjects to be linked together more effectively while still
being based on a robust set of knowledge that is required in the
programmes of
study.
We
have the changes to Connexions that we are talking about under the
Bill. There is the introduction of 17 new diplomas—possibly the
bravest qualification reform that has been carried out for some time.
We are on track to meeting every major milestone on time and on target
in that programme. There is the introduction of the foundation learning
tier for those who are below level 2 in their abilities, so that there
is still a tiered set of qualifications and attainment that can be
achieved by those who are less able. We announced the apprenticeships
expansion on Monday. We are looking to one in five over-16s being able
to access an apprenticeship. There is the introduction of the A* grade
in the reforms at A-level. We are proceeding with a range of changes at
pre-16
level.
Mr.
Marsden:
It seems to me that the thrust of what my hon.
Friend is saying and the bulk of the initiatives that will be
implemented over the next four to eight years will answer most if not
all of the points that the hon. Member for South Holland and The
Deepings made in relation to the arguments against
compulsion.
Jim
Knight:
Naturally, I believe that they do. I believe that
this measure is the culmination of a much wider programme of reform and
improvement of our schools system. It is undoubtedly ambitious to want
to raise the ambition and aspiration of the whole education system to
take everyone through to 18, but it is right that we should now do
so.
Mr.
Hayes:
I apologise for not welcoming you to the Chair,
Mr. Bayley; I do so now. Surely there is at least an equally
strong—I put it no more firmly than
that—argument that, having put those reforms in place, one would
want to see the effect that they had had on participation. If we
strengthen the product in the way that the hon. Member for Blackpool,
South and the Minister describe, it may well be that many more 16 and
17-year-olds will participate anyway. At that point, one would want to
take a view about whether compulsion was
necessary.
Jim
Knight:
I can see that there is a certain logic to the
hon. Gentleman’s argument. However, we have carefully examined
the trajectories and we have seen some improvement in
participation, but it is incremental improvement. We think that the
combination of all these measures will get us to 90 per cent. in the
timeline that we have been talking about in relation to implementing
the Bill. When we considered the challenge of the last 10 per cent. and
the importance of doing something for that 10 per cent., because those
are probably the most disadvantaged young people in our country and the
ones who would benefit most from education and training, the view was
that only through compulsion could we get to them. That is not because
they will think, “Oh, goodness me, it’s now the law that
I have to do it.” It is more that, for us in the Department, for
local authorities and for our non-departmental public bodies—for
the whole system—we have a much stronger driver, beyond our
passion for social justice, to make the policy work. I am referring to
developing things such as the range of informal training that we will
talk about under clause
4.
Mr.
Laws:
The Minister mentions the 10 per cent. that
the Government think that they may not get to through voluntarism. Is
the 10 per cent. a snapshot of one point in time or does it represent
some people who might be in education and training at some point during
the year in question, but not at the snapshot
point?
Jim
Knight:
If I have the implication of the hon.
Gentleman’s question right, I would say that that is true. As
with the 10 per cent. who are NEETs, not all of those are not in
education, employment or training for the whole of the period that we
measure. The vast majority go in and out of employment, and some go in
and out of education or training. Nevertheless, there are a few per
cent. who remain consistently disengaged. We have to galvanise the
system to re-engage them and to shift the culture. Equally, if people
are dropping in and out, we have not got them sufficiently engaged to
properly benefit from the education and training opportunities that are
available.
Mr.
Laws:
The Minister understands my concern correctly. If
his Department has any information and research available on this
issue, describing this 10 per cent. and telling us whether such people
are in education and training at any point in the year in question,
will he make it available to the
Committee?
Jim
Knight:
I think that we have some good analysis of the 10
per cent. not in education, employment or training. It is fair to make
a broad comparison between that 10 per cent. and the 10 per cent. that
we are chasing after. We also want those in full-time work to be
involved in some form of education and training.
That is a fundamental part of the Bill as well,
which we will discuss when we move on to clause 2. It is fair for the
hon. Gentleman to take the analysis of the NEETs, and I will discuss
with officials whether we have enough in the public domain to satisfy
him and the rest of the Committee. If I have to furnish the Committee
with more information, I will, of course, look to do
so.
Mr.
Hayes:
It seems to me that we have reached a salient
point. The Minister has now said that the principal justification for
compulsion—and that is what we are debating—is to chase
after 10 per cent. of the cohort. If that is right, we are introducing
compulsion for many for the benefit of a very important small number of
young people. I wonder what proportion of those young people will be
difficult to engage, even with compulsion. We know that in year 11 in
secondary school, the combined total of authorised and unauthorised
absence is between 8 and 10 per cent. of the school population. Of the
people that the Minister most wants to get at, does he envisage that a
number will not attend even if they are compelled to do
so?
Jim
Knight:
The 10 per cent. figure is what we are principally
chasing after. However, we are chasing after it by seeking to shift the
culture. I want to quote Paul Head, the fine constituent of my hon.
Friend the Under-Secretary for Innovation, Universities and Skills. He
stated:
“The
reason I welcome compulsion is that it changes the nature of the terms
of the debate. You no longer ask, ‘How do we work our way up to
85 or 90 per cent.?’ You actually start asking, ‘Why are
we not at 100 per cent.?’ That is a mindset difference that
schools, colleges, local authorities, employers and private training
providers need to get their heads around. We have to do it for 100 per
cent.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills
Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 154,
Q348.]
I felt that that was a
compelling statement that was made by that particular college
principal, and it sums up much of the argument around why we are
seeking to do this.
In respect of the point about
absence, I am sure that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire
will be listening very closely to this. It is easy for people to
associate absence with truancy because in normal use of the English
language the two words are related. However, in respect of what the
statistics actually measure, there is a strong difference between
general absence, which includes authorised absence and truancy, and
unauthorised absence, which includes a number of other things. For
example, unauthorised absence includes instances when parents take
children on holiday without the permission of the school. That has
increased because in our guidance “Every Lesson Counts”
we ask schools to enforce more rigorously the notion that children
should be at school every day of the school year. Schools are
responding to our encouragement and are authorising parents to take
their children out of school for holidays less, but some parents do
proceed with that sort of unauthorised absence.
Before we conclude our
examination of the Bill, I am sure it will help the Committee to know
that, assuming we continue with proceedings until 29 February, the
latest statistical release of absence will be published on
26 February. For the first time that will include a
breakdown of excuses, so we will finally be able to nail down more
closely what numbers are truant and what numbers are not. I am sure
that will be of huge comfort to the hon. Member for North-East
Hertfordshire.
Mr.
Hayes:
While the Minister is reading his note, perhaps I
could be helpful to him. The point still stands. He is right to say
that we are dealing with three kinds of absence:
authorised, other types of unauthorised but not truancy, and truancy. I
chose my earlier words carefully for that reason. It is surely not
unreasonable to assume that the pattern will be similar for people
between the ages of 16 to 18. All those types of absence will apply in
the same way to 16 and 17-year-olds as they do to younger people. It
might be helpful to the Committee if he could say whether the
Government have done any modelling on that matter—I did ask that
question in the evidence session. We could then find out whether the
Government predict that the pattern will continue or whether they take
a different
view.
Jim
Knight:
If I received a submission and was asked to make a
decision about whether to commission that sort of research, I would say
that there are many factors to take into account. I have set out all
the changes to be made to the schooling system pre-16 to make it more
engaging and productive, and to improve standards. It is very difficult
for any academic to properly predict what the effect on absence will be
by the time the measure comes into effect. Assuming it is not a
middle-school system, the current year 6 cohort that is currently in
its last year of primary school will be the first year affected by the
measure. To predict how that cohort will respond to the changes that
are taking place and what they will do in respect of absence thereafter
is too difficult an issue to provide value-for-money research. I shall
consult my officials later, and if I find out that we have commissioned
such research, I will let the Committee know and tell hon. Members what
it says—but I will also ask the officials how they managed to
get
approval.
Mr.
Heald:
There is great concern in the EU about the
informal—grey—economy. I know that the French
presidency is planning to hold a major conference
about the grey economy, to which I am sure the Minister will be
invited. To what extent does this policy aim to remove young people
between 16 to 18 from criminality, the grey economy and those sorts of
activities? Do his figures, or his research if he has done any, show to
what extent that 10 per cent. are involved in such
activities?
Jim
Knight:
I do not have any figures to hand on what
proportion are involved in the grey economy. The hon. Member for
Broxbourne asked me a question on Tuesday about criminality, antisocial
behaviour and so on. I said then that although we did not include it in
the impact assessment as a benefit, we are clearly mindful that those
participating in education and training are less likely to be involved
in criminality—and, I imagine, less likely to be involved in the
grey economy. That may be a positive spin-off, but it is not the basis
for our policy. The policy is intended to address the individual needs
and raise the life chances of every young person, and also to address
the skills needs of the country as set out in Lord Leitch’s
review.
2
pm
It has just
occurred to me, in response to a question from the hon. Member for
South Holland and The Deepings on attendance, that clause 11 puts a
duty on learning providers to promote good attendance. We may want to
debate that issue more when we reach that point.
I shall pass
over comments on the traditional rigour of the new secondary
curriculum, because the Committee will want to move on and we will have
other opportunities to debate the subject.
The
hon. Member for Yeovil made some interesting comments in exchanges on
the definition of adulthood, particularly in the context of whether
compulsion was appropriate for people over the age of 16, given that
people acquire any number of rights at that age. He mentioned marriage,
but that is possible only with parental consent; and 16 and
17-year-olds are restricted in the number of hours that they can work:
14 hours, which is different from adults. As for benefits, there are
limited benefits in cases of severe hardship below the age of 18. Yes,
it is true that they can pilot a glider or sell scrap metal, but they
cannot drink alcohol. I was fascinated that the hon. Gentleman should
seem to advocate lowering the drinking age. If he wants to intervene
and contradict me, I will happily give way.
Mr.
Laws:
I said that all those issues should be properly
considered. Does the Minister see no contradiction between the
suggestion of the Leader of the House that young people may be
qualified at the age of 16 to determine the future of the country, but
that under the Bill they are not deemed fit to make choices on their
own
future?
Jim
Knight:
I note that the hon. Gentleman did not answer the
question whether he advocated lowering the drinking age. He says that
it should be properly considered, which suggests that he may have some
sympathy with the idea. Perhaps a motion to the Liberal Democrat
conference will help to guide him; his party is well guided by such
things.
In respect of
the hon. Gentleman’s question on the voting age, it is a debate
to be had. Naturally, the Government look forward to that debate. We
look to the Leader of the House for wisdom on such matters, but should
we decide to lower the voting age to 16, it still will not contradict
the notion that we are setting out clearly in the Bill that the period
between turning 16 and turning 18 is period of transition from
childhood to adulthood. That is why the Bill includes a duty on young
people to participate in education. Up to the compulsory school leaving
age of 16, the duty rests solely with parents. Some duties are attached
to parents under the Bill, implying that they too have a
role.
The driving
age is 17, although some argue that it should be 18, and that the legal
age for buying cigarettes should be 18, as it is for alcohol, but many
other things happen at 16. The law generally acknowledges that it is a
period of transition. It is therefore not at all difficult to suggest
that compulsion should apply in respect of some form of education or
training up to the age of
18.
Mr.
Hayes:
Further to the intervention from the hon. Member
for Yeovil, I appreciate that the views of college principals vary.
Some principals tell me that the
character of their college depends to some degree on the fact that the
young people who go there choose to do so. They left school, to which
they were compelled to go, but they want to be at college. The young
people who will be obliged to go to college from age 16 onwards will
not be in that position, which will change the nature of college
communities.
“One of
the strengths of the Bill is that it is not raising the school-leaving
age—it is not saying to these young people, “You must
continue in school or college.” Instead, it is giving them
alternative routes, which potentially will lead them in the right
direction.”——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 63,
Q159.]
I agree
with that. It would be wrong for us, or for young people’s
advisers to tell them what choice to make. Equally, it is right to say
to young people, “Doing nothing is not a choice”.
Clearly, I disagree on that point with the British Youth Council. In an
evidence session, Barnardo’s told us
“that children should be viewed as
such until their 18th birthday... we do not share the view that a
16-year-old can make an informed, autonomous decision that...could
have such a catastrophic effect on their
future”.——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 13,
Q27.]
Mr.
Laws:
On the final point about young people not having
responsibility or not being entrusted with decisions until they are 18,
does the Minister accept that there is an assumption in the Bill that
parents cannot be held accountable in the same way when their child is
over 16, and that the Bill is framed around the thinking that parental
duties change significantly when a child turns
16?
Jim
Knight:
As I said, during the period of transition, it is
right to redefine the relationship between the learning institution and
parents post-16, which is why we have imposed the duty on young people.
We will go on to debate the duties on parents essentially not to stand
in the way of a young person pursuing education or training. It is also
worth noting the evidence given by my official Jon Coles, who spoke
about the sanctions that will be available to the youth court. Parents
might have to pay fines, so there is potentially a role for them, but
the appropriateness of such a measure would be for the courts to
decide.
There was
some discussion of consultation. The Department is mindful of an
opinion poll conducted before the publication of the Green Paper that
surveyed a representative sample of the public, but not, admittedly,
young people. It sampled a demographically representative 859 adults
aged 16 or over, although I detect a slight contradiction in calling
people aged 16 or over “adults”. Of the people
questioned, 90 per cent. thought that young people should remain in
education or training up to the age of 18, and 76 per cent. agreed
strongly. When asked whether the participation should be a legal
requirement, 66 per cent. were in favour, so there is a good range of
opinion on the subject. We also heard from Opposition spokesmen a
repetition of the argument that vocational qualifications were of
dubious
value.
Jim
Knight:
Not all of them, but some. There was reference to
Alison Wolf’s analysis. For the record, I repeat what I said in
evidence: a wide range of qualifications at level 2 had substantial
returns for lower-achieving school leavers. I refer to research by
Jenkins et al in 2007: BTECs have a return of about 13 per cent., City
and Guilds crafts of about 5 to 7 per cent., RSA diplomas of about 17
per cent., BTECs level 3 of about 16 to 17 per cent., and so on. It is
worth saying that there are excellent wage returns to advanced
apprenticeships at level 3, but there are equally good returns on
apprenticeships generally.
I mentioned
the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli, who made the case
for compulsion extremely well, particularly when she talked about
raising expectations. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton, in an intervention, said that the duty would be a burden
on vulnerable people. If people are vulnerable and have support needs,
those needs would be met rather than enforcement action being taken. I
do not regard the duty as a burden on vulnerable people. It is a burden
on those who want to stay under the duvet and have no good reason for
not getting up and getting on with things, but not on vulnerable
people.
Mr.
Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con): When I
made that point, I was referring to the Minister’s comments
during the evidence sessions, in which he said that a key objective of
the compulsorily element of the Bill was to galvanise officials into
delivering services to those people and to energise them. I thought
that that was a rather harsh method of management and that individuals
holding a position of responsibility in education authorities should be
galvanised and energised in other ways. It is a pity that we have to
rely on a legal, criminal requirement for those vulnerable people to
galvanise our officials.
Jim
Knight:
I have set out my belief that the galvanising
effect is important, but so is cultural change or the mind shift, as it
was described by Paul Head in his evidence. The mindset difference is
just as important in creating the necessary change to motivate the 10
per cent. of young people whom we are particularly keen to
motivate.
The hon.
Member for South Holland and The Deepings gave a typically robust and
extensive oration. He mentioned many things to which I have already
responded. In response to his point that apprenticeships are often not
close enough to employers—I am sure that that is a point that he
will repeat on a few occasions to the Committee and I am equally sure
that both the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and
Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham and I will have cause
to repeat our responses to him—may I point out that there are
more than 130,000 employers offering apprenticeship places in more than
180 different types of businesses at the moment? All of the existing
240,000 apprenticeships are work-based. We think that there is a role
for programme-led apprenticeships, but they will not count towards our
targets until the young person takes up a place with an employer. I
hope that that is some comfort to the hon. Gentleman. He also made some
important points about information, advice and
guidance.
Mr.
Hayes:
The Minister is correct. We can debate
apprenticeships at greater length later, but I would just like to make
one point. Although the review that was
published this week although it offers some welcome changes, is it not
the case that it cements the role of the Learning and Skills Council in
the system, and diminishes the role of sector skills councils? In
contrast with what Lord Leitch recommends, it does not produce an
employer-driven system but one that is still centrally managed, funded
and driven, and based on central targets.
Jim
Knight:
When we have a longer debate about
apprenticeships, we can explore some of those issues further, and I am
sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State looks forward to
doing so. However, as far as I recall, the LSC arrangement includes the
notion that there will be a discrete apprenticeship service, which will
work with local employment partnerships in the delivery of
apprenticeships and in the brokering with employers that is
required.
I attended
the launch of the initiative earlier this week—I think that it
was on Monday morning—at the QEII conference centre with a range
of employers, led by the chairman of BT. There was a very warm welcome
from those employers for the proposals, and I look forward to the
expansion of apprenticeships heralded at that important conference,
which was addressed by the Prime Minister. In respect of information,
advice and guidance, I would again quote evidence that we received from
the Association of Colleges, which
said:
“The
provisions in the Bill...are the right way forward...The
provisions in the Bill will certainly aid the opportunities of young
people to receive that information on an impartial
basis.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills
Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 28,
Q67.]
The Association of School
and College Leaders
said:
“If you
take the new standards for individual advice and guidance—the
quality standards—they provide a really strong framework for
high-quality guidance within school. We really support what is in the
Bill. If a school or a college were to audit their provision, going
through these quality standards, and a local authority were to use the
standards as an auditing tool, the quality of careers guidance would be
very good indeed.”——[Official Report, Education
and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 66,
Q164.]
Mr.
Hayes:
The Minister is quoting remarkably selectively, as
a number of witnesses in the evidence-taking session agreed that the
optimal arrangement was some kind of all-age careers service. Indeed,
representatives of the Association of Learning Providers and of
Connexions were not unsympathetic to that proposal, yet that is not
what emerges in the Bill or from other Government changes. If they did
anything, the evidence-taking sessions cemented the idea that reform to
advice and guidance is urgent and essential for the Bill is to spring
to
life.
2.15
pm
Jim
Knight:
Again, we will have the opportunity to debate
information, advice and guidance and the Connexions transfer later. In
passing, I recall the answer to the question that the hon. Gentleman
asked a number of witnesses from the Prince’s Trust, who said
that they were sympathetic to an all-age careers guidance service, but
that if we had to prioritise, as inevitably in government one does,
they thought that the changes were broadly right. Those are not their
exact words, but that is the correct thrust, as I recall.
To address
directly the arguments for compulsion, we are already working towards
encouraging 90 per cent. of 17-year-olds to participate in education or
training by 2015, up from 77 per cent. as it is now. That is one of the
key aims of all the changes that we are currently making to the
14-to-19 phase. Achieving 90 per cent. will represent a significant
improvement, but it will not put us among the world leaders and it will
still mean that 10 per cent. of 16 to 18-year-olds will not be
receiving any form of education or training. It would be unacceptable
for even 10 per cent. of young people to be left behind and not have
further opportunities to develop their skills, especially as they are
more likely to be our most vulnerable and marginalised young
people.
To get beyond
90 per cent. participation, we must significantly raise the aspirations
of those who choose not to participate at present and we must change
and develop the nature of the offer to them, so that perhaps those who
struggle with literacy or numeracy have opportunities to be re-engaged
and catch up with some of those skills, so that they are properly
equipped later in life.
Without
compulsion, young people with lower aspirations—those who
perhaps come from poorer backgrounds and those who are most likely to
gain from continuing their education—will be missed out. We
believe that raising the participation age to 18 is the most effective
way of galvanising the education system to provide better, for all
young people.
It is
perfectly reasonable to ask, “Why not just have an
entitlement?”, which is in essence what the amendment argues. I
would say that we have that already; the Learning and Skills Council is
responsible for ensuring appropriate provision for all 16 to
19-year-olds. The September guarantee that came into effect this
September guarantees an offer of a suitable learning place to all young
people leaving year 11, and is about to be extended for 17-year-olds.
We are strengthening that through the entitlement to different kinds of
provision from 2013, including the entitlement to an apprenticeship.
The amendment would leave us with the status quo. I say to the
Committee that the status quo is not good enough for this country; it
is not good enough for ensuring that every young person has access to
education or training. We are simply removing one choice from young
people, and that is the choice to do nothing.
The system
will be flexible. There will be a range of choices to meet
everyone’s needs—A-levels, GCSEs, diplomas, the
foundation learning tier, return to learning or entry to employment.
The foundation learning tier will be flexible, and it can be
personalised. Many providers have already started to offer flexible
start dates, and we have encouraged more to do so. There will be
flexible times of learning, to fit in with those who are in full-time
work. It is worth saying in passing that over half of young people aged
16 to 19in full-time work, work in the retail sector, which has
extensive opening hours are extensive. Once the maximum of 40
hours’ work is completed—that is the legal maximum that
16 to 18-year-olds can work—there is still plenty of time, given
the flexibility of hours that can be worked in retail or to devoted to
courses offered by learning providers, for people to obtain useful,
accredited qualifications.
May I tell the hon. Member for
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, who moved the amendment, that in
practice that would not change the current position?
Young people who wanted to participate would continue to do so, and
those who did not would fail to agree that the duty applied to them.
Nothing would change, and we need to do better. I therefore urge the
hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Mr.
Gibb:
The debate has been interesting. The hon. Member for
Yeovil made a compelling speech setting out the
arguments against the use of compulsion to raise the participation age
to 18. Both parties share the Government’s aspiration and
objective of raising participation in educational training—of
course it is the right thing to do. The disagreement between us is
about how we should do so, and whether simply passing a law or changing
the criminal law is the most effective way of dealing with the problem.
The Opposition do not believe that to be the right approach. My hon.
Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire made an illuminating
speech that showed that his extensive experience of visiting projects
that help the most vulnerable young adults—young
youths—in the country, has informed his genuine concern about
literacy. He is right: groups that are engaged, as opposed to just
talking about it, with those people have a genuine concern about
literacy. The hon. Member for Llanelli, who made a quip about how
“Yeovil” was pronounced in the phonics alphabet, revealed
herself as one of those people who oppose synthetic phonics as a method
of teaching children to
read.
Nia
Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab): I hope you will allow
me, Mr. Bayley, to say clearly on the
record that I do not oppose the teaching of phonics. I believe that
there are a range of methodologies that can be used very successfully,
and I think that more than one methodology is needed to master the
English language.
Mr.
Gibb:
That means that the hon. Lady is opposed to phonics.
The synthetic phonics people argue that not even a combination of
programmes should be used. One has to be faithful to
one synthetic phonics programme—that is what Jim Rose says in
his report. We are only talking about the first few months of formal
education, but it is important to be faithful to one synthetic phonics
programme. The notion that there is a range of strategies reveals
either a lack of understanding of the issue, or opposition to synthetic
phonics and its use in teaching of children to read in the early
years.
The argument
is that there are some children who cannot get it—I see you
glaring, Mr. Bayley, so I will just make this one point, as
it is important and covers some issues raised by my hon. Friend. There
are some children who struggle with phonics; there is no question about
that. However, the notion that those children benefit from look-and-
say is nonsense. The children who can learn to read using look-and-say
are the very bright ones: they will learn to read if you breathe on
them with a book. It is the children in the bottom quartile of the
ability range who suffer. They need more phonics, not less, and they
need one-to-one tuition to ensure that they get it. That is the only
answer for those children, and it is a tragedy that for 20, 30, 40
years, generations of children have lost out. That is why we have the
projects that my hon. Friend
the Member for North-East Hertfordshire visited. The
prisons contain too many people who have problems with their
reading.
Moving
swiftly on, the Minister talked about trying to change the culture. He
drew a parallel with the culture of speeding and drink-driving.
However, there is a difference between trying to change people’s
behaviour when they are driving a car, and trying to encourage people
to stay in education or training. People need to be motivated to learn.
Alison Wolf cited evidence that showed that unless somebody is
motivated to learn a trade or an academic subject, they will not
acquire any knowledge during that process.
Jim
Knight:
Does the hon. Gentleman recall what was said by a
range of witnesses, including the Prince’s Trust, Martin Narey
from Barnardo’s, and Fairbridge? They knew a
number of people who had been compelled to attend educational training,
and said that, as long as they had a choice about what they did after
that compulsion, there were good examples of their succeeding in
acquiring new skills and improving their life chances as a
result.
Mr.
Gibb:
My recollection is that Martina Milburn from the
Prince’s Trust said they had great concerns about compulsion.
Nigel Haynes, the chief executive of Fairbridge, asked what
evidence there was that compulsion had an effect. He said that the fact
that the young people with whom they deal came because they wanted to
and stayed because they wanted to meant that there was a stronger
motivation for change. Rainer said that it strongly opposed the
proposed attendance orders. Those people actually deal with young
people, and they do so effectively. Fantastic work is done by such
groups. They are either opposed to, or concerned about, compulsion.
Opposition Members are therefore not convinced that compulsion is the
way to help those 10 per cent. of people to whom the Minister
referred.
A few years
ago, the Public Accounts Committee looked into the question of why
dropout rates in higher and further education were so high. The
National Audit Office found that one of the key reasons was a lack of
preparation in secondary school for young people going on to further
and higher education. If the NAO says that there is a lack of
preparation in secondary education for further and higher education,
what more lack of preparation do the young people whom we are talking
about face in their school years? They are not equipped to go on to
training or a form of further education: that was the essence of my
argument this morning.
There are
deep-seated problems why 23 per cent. of 16-year-olds do not go on to
further education or training. The Minister said that 90 per cent. was
not enough compared with other countries, but 23 per cent. of our young
people are not entering further education. Something is fundamentally
wrong. It is a more intractable problem than just changing the law and
hoping that things will be put right.
Mr.
Hayes:
My hon. Friend is speaking with his usual expertise
and passion. A point well made by my hon. Friend the Member for
North-East Hertfordshire was that the business of those young people
agreeing to participate is significant in itself, because they have
already made a commitment to
re-engage. That commitment will not be forthcoming if we compel them to
participate.
Mr.
Gibb:
The hon. Friend makes the point well, as did my hon.
Friend the Member for North-East
Hertfordshire.
Mr.
Heald:
Does my hon. Friend agree that the history of using
criminal penalties to persuade young people to do something that they
do not want to do is not good? The National Audit Office report deals
with community penalties, and it shows that people are not turning up
on time and are breaching the orders. In fact, the probation service
has so many problems with the orders that it is not enforcing them
properly. Such a system does not work without the individual’s
motivation.
I accept that
the Minister is going to split the truancy figures and the figures on
unauthorised absences as a result of schools clamping down on children
being taken out of school during term time to go on holiday. I share
his feelings. I am passionate that parents should not take their
children out of school in term time. Education is an expensive service
that the state provides. It is hugely important to every child in
school. Children should not be taken out of school in term time because
a holiday is £200 or £300 cheaper then. My answer is a
holiday in Bognor Regis. It has fantastic facilities for young people.
There is no need to go to Spain or the
Bahamas.
2.30
pm
The research
commissioned by the Government is clear. Its executive summary
states:
“There
was little or no direct evidence of the likely impact of introducing a
system of compulsory education or training to the age of 18; in many
cases change had only recently been introduced, and it was as yet too
early to find evidence of
impact.”
The
Minister scrabbled around, not very convincingly, to find something to
justify his case. I am concerned about the causal link in the
Government’s claims about wider aspects of well-being. Of course
there is a correlation between education and people’s health,
well-being and wealth, but is there a causal link? If somebody is
forced into education, will their health improve? Page 36 of the
Government’s report
states:
“Much
of the evidence on the links between increased participation and
associated health benefits is quite weak and fails to provide a robust
relationship between the two”
On behaviour and crime, the report
says:
“There is
only very limited evidence on the link between not participating in
education or training post-16 and the likelihood of criminal
behaviour.”
The
Government’s case is not well made. Of course we agree with the
Government’s objectives, but the Opposition do not agree with
the principle of compulsion. Whether that opposition is based on
principle, as it is for the hon. Member for Yeovil, or on practicality,
as it is for my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire and
others—whatever the motivation, I urge the Committee to oppose
the principle behind the clause and to support the
amendment.
The
Committee divided: Ayes 7, Noes
10.
Division
No.
1
]
AYESNOES
Question
accordingly negatived.
(d) is not
participating in a gap year prior to pursuing a level 3 qualification
in the following
year.’.
The
amendment adds a second exemption to clause 1, which imposes a duty to
participate. The first exemption is in clause 1(c), and refers to a 16
or 17-year-old who has already achieved a level three
qualification—2 A-levels or the equivalent. I am sure that you,
Mr. Bayley, achieved your superlative A-levels by the time
you were 17, if not when you were 16, but there are youngsters who,
after GCSEs, are tired of academic study and wish to spend time abroad
on an early gap year before resuming A-level study on their return. The
Bill already provides for those who wish to pursue a gap year between
A-levels and college or training, by providing the exemption in clause
1(c). However, for those who want a year out before they start their
A-levels, or those for whom year 11 is their final year at school, this
may be their only opportunity to take a year out before they start a
three-year apprenticeship or a lifetime in work. It seems slightly
unfair expressly to permit a gap year for those who are academic enough
to do A-levels, but who have not yet reached the age of 18, but not to
permit a gap year for those for whom GCSE will be the highest level of
academic qualification that they achieve.
The British Youth Council, as
well as opposing the whole notion of raising the participation age to
18 by law, has criticised the potential criminalisation of young people
who choose not to participate. It says that the Bill
“takes away the choice from a
young person, for example, to spend a year volunteering on a
‘gap year’, which is enshrined in the findings of the
Russell Commission and underpins the Government’s volunteering
initiative.”
In its
fourth recommendation, the Russell Commission states:
“It should be
commonplace for young people to volunteer whilst they are at school,
college or in higher
education.”
That is a
worthy ambition. The report produced at the end of the
Government’s consultation stated on page
11:
“Some young
people felt that young people should have the opportunity to
participate in schemes such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award, or be able
to take a gap year to participate in some type of valuable
project.”
In addition, some young people called for
volunteering to count as participation, arguing that many of those
schemes help young people to achieve valuable qualifications.
I hope, therefore, that the
Government will agree to an amendment that allows 16 and 17-year-olds
to take a gap year, provided that they can demonstrate that they intend
to pursue a level 3 qualification on their return, or, by implication,
if they do not have a level 1 or a level 2 qualification, that they
will pursue a level 1 or 2 qualification. I also hope that the
Government will consider the Bill’s effect on young 16 and
17-year-old athletes who are sponsored to train full-time. I wish to
ask the Minister, particularly in the run-up to the London Olympics,
whether that counts as full-time employment or is it training and thus
counts as an exemption under the training
provisions?
Mr.
Laws:
May I welcome you back to the Chair for this
afternoon’s proceedings, Mr. Bayley? I will not
detain the Committee long on this particular
amendment. In the interests of our general, liberal and pro-freedom
approach we support it, but I hope that either the hon. Member for
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton or the Minister can enlighten us about
the number of people who take up such opportunities. I do not know of
many myself, and I do not know how the Bill would accommodate some of
the examples that the hon. Gentleman has just given to us, although I
read somewhere that athletes were going to be exempt in some way. That
would cover precisely the types of youngsters to whom he referred, and
who could be engaged in sporting activities in the run-up to the
Olympic games. Perhaps the Minister will indicate whether the
Department has any information on the number of people be involved, and
clarify the status of any young person involved in training for the
Olympic games or any other such high-profile
event.
Jim
Knight:
I hope to be able to deal with this very briefly.
We should not be encourage young people to leave learning at 16. We
know that being NEET at 16 is universally associated with poor
outcomes, as the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings
explained earlier, and that staying in learning post-16 is hugely
beneficial to young people. They are more likely to gain further skills
and qualifications, which helps them to progress in learning in future,
find and keep employment and earn more over their lifetime. Those who
participate are also more likely to be healthy and less likely to
commit antisocial behaviour or get involved in crime.
It would be difficult to define
a gap year in law, or to identify who was taking one and who was simply
using it as an excuse not to participate. If the point is that some
young people want to leave or take a break from academic study at 16,
as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton suggested, that
is fine—young people will be able to work or
volunteer.
Paragraph 18 of the
explanatory notes
states:
“Regulations
made under subsection 1(b) can prescribe any other kinds of occupation
that should count for these purposes, including volunteering, agency
work and working as the holder of an office (for example, police
officers or public
appointees).”
We
want the regulations to make it clear that volunteering would count, as
long as the young person did some part-time training as well. If a
young person wished to
travel or volunteer outside England, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis
and Littlehampton suggested, they would not be subject to the duty to
participate, because they would be out of the country. Clause 1
states:
“This
Part applies to any person who is resident in
England”.
My
understanding is that the duty would apply to full-time athletes and
apprentice footballers training full-time; they would still have to
work towards an accredited qualification. It might be possible to find
a way of accrediting some of the training undertaken by full-time
athletes or footballers, but it is important, given the possibility of
serious injury that elite sportsmen and women can incur, that they have
other options. Not every apprentice footballer, even those with the
great premier football teams, such as Arsenal, makes it, and it would
not be right for them to have to begin their education again. It is a
positive aspect of the Bill that even they would have to take part in
accredited
training.
Mr.
Gibb:
Will the Minister say for what accredited
qualification he would expect Theo Walcott to
study?
Jim
Knight:
As I recall, Theo Walcott’s girlfriend did
very well in her GCSEs or A-levels last summer. I am sure that he would
want to acquire the necessary qualifications to enable him to compete
with her intellectually as well as he competes for a place in the squad
with the few English players at Arsenal. We will of course discuss
later, under clause 6, the definition of relevant training and
education, at which point we can perhaps return to Theo
Walcott’s
training.
Mr.
Heald:
A player who really did establish himself was Steve
Coppell. He is now manager of Reading, and he has a
degree.
Mr.
Heald:
I think that he went to Liverpool, but I might be
wrong. Nevertheless, he is a good example, is he
not?
Jim
Knight:
He is a good example, and a rare one, of
an excellent footballer and manager—although
Reading are not my team—which is unusual for an Englishman these
days, who pursued education alongside his football career. It is
possible to excel in sport and attain a qualification. There are many
other examples in rugby, rowing and other sports of people who have
excelled in education and in sport. On the basis of those compelling
arguments, I urge the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton to
withdraw his
amendment.
Mr.
Gibb:
I am reassured by the Minister’s response to
my point about volunteering, and I am grateful for his explanation. I
was interested in his response to my concerns about people wanting to
take a gap year abroad, and he has reminded the Committee that the duty
applies only to people resident in this country. I do not know whether
the Bill will result in a mass exodus in a few years’ time of 16
and 17-year-olds wishing to avoid the duty imposed by the Bill, he has
reassured me that those who want to spend some time travelling before
resuming their academic or training careers can do so. I was
disappointed by the Minister’s response to my point about
athletes, particularly given that we are entering the run-up to the
Olympics. However, in view of his other assurances in this short,
interesting and probing debate, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
‘(d) has not
been issued with a waiver certificate by a local
authority.’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment No. 77, in clause 10, page 5, line 36, at end
add—
‘(2) The local
authority shall have the power to grant a waiver from the duty imposed
by section 2 where it believes that this would not be in the best
interests of the person
concerned.’.
Mr.
Laws:
This is a probing amendment, and we do not intend to
press it to a Division. However, it raises some important issues, to
which we will inevitably return when we consider later clauses of the
Bill. Although I do not want to tread too much on the toes of those
later clauses, it is quite a good time to raise some issues in the
context of clause 1 and the sphere of its
influence.
2.45
pm
We have already
discussed some of the philosophical objections to the
Government’s approach to compulsion, which were an important
part of the comments that I made on amendment No. 1. It might be
possible to consider amendment No. 70 to clause 1 and amendment No. 77
to clause 10 as part of that attack on compulsion. Amendment No. 70
would give local authorities the power to allow young people a waiver
so that they would not be affected by the proposals on compulsion. The
amendment might essentially complement the amendment of the hon. Member
for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that would allow young people
themselves to opt out of clause 1.
Having dealt
with the philosophy of compulsion earlier, I do not want to discuss
those issues again. In tabling the two amendments, our concerns are
more about the practicalities of the Bill, which the hon. Members for
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and for South Holland and The Deepings
mentioned. The amendments raise two particular issues in relation to
the practicalities of compulsion. The first is one that we took
evidence on at the beginning of the week and concerns reasonable excuse
and the extent to which a local authority should essentially allow
people an exit route from compulsion. I want to talk about some of the
groups that will be particularly affected by compulsion and some of
their concerns. The second issue is whether there are more suitable
options available for that group of quite vulnerable young people aged
16 and 17 and whether those options ought to be provided through the
local authority route and the other agencies that may be able to
intervene. I want to explore the extent to which those other options
will be permitted.
As we proceed, I encourage the
Minister to feel free to intervene if I get anything wrong, because
that may help to clarify his intentions. We know from him and from the
evidence session that he has undertaken to publish the guidance that
will be provided to local authorities on reasonable excuse before the
end of the Committee’s
proceedings.
Jim
Knight:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying
that he will be tolerant if I need to correct him. When giving evidence
on Tuesday, I think I explained that we do not want to publish draft
guidance because of the dangers of it becoming out of date, but that we
would circulate to the Committee our thinking on a reasonable
excuse—I think that was the phrase I used. I want to clarify
that because I do not want artificially to raise his
expectations.
Mr.
Laws:
My expectations are never raised by Ministers. I am
grateful for that clarification and hope that the Minister will tell us
what the Department’s thinking is on those issues at a
relatively early stage in our proceedings because it may save us time
when dealing with later clauses. That would be helpful to us and to
Ministers.
Let
me set the scene in relation to some of the groups that we are
concerned about in connection with compulsion. Earlier, the Minister
cited some of the supporters of compulsion and some of the potential
benefits, but I thought that it would waste the Committee’s time
if I jumped up to mention those who have opposed compulsion. The
Minister knows that many Labour Members who have a lot of experience of
young people who are excluded from, or are outside, the education
system, are also sceptical about whether the approach is right,
particularly for the group of vulnerable young people on whom I shall
concentrate when discussing amendments Nos. 70 and 77. The right hon.
Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who
represents a part of the country with one of the largest numbers of
young people outside education and training, went on the record in
November 2007, saying
that
“the idea that
deeply damaged young men and women could somehow be fined and it would
make them go into education or training;—I think it’s
cloud cuckoo
land”.
We want
to explore whether local authorities should be able to grant a waiver
from the Bill’s provisions on compulsion to groups of young
people for whom the requirements may be unrealistic or undesirable. We
also want to consider whether we can give other types of help to young
people, because we are not suggesting that the alternative is to write
them off and forget about them. Even where there are entitlements, many
young people are not getting effective support to help them to
re-engage in education and training later on.
Notwithstanding the evidence
that the Minister cited from those groups that engage with young people
and support compulsion because they consider it to be a galvanising
influence, we heard, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton said, from many groups that have huge experience and are
sceptical about whether compulsion is the right route. Only earlier
this week, James Cathcart of the British Youth Council gave evidence to
us and said that, although he could think of many young people who
would be able
to engage with some of the proposals in the Bill, there would be many
who, even with sanctions, would not be willing to
participate.
Nigel
Haynes, the chief executive of Fairbridge, also said that a large
number of young people who will be affected by the clause
have
“walked away from
institutionalised provisions in one way or another, and they really
could not give a damn. The secret is getting the commitment...to
do it”—
to enter
into education and training—
“voluntarily.”
He
also spoke about the difficulties that Fairbridge has engaging with
that high-needs group of young individuals and getting them to take
part in the education and training that it offers. He said that among
the cohort of young people whom Fairbridge deals with, who have after
all come forward voluntarily, a large number still do not succeed in
engaging with the process. He said:
“In our cohort, you have
got to consider what you mean by an outcome. If you can get away from
throughput, statistics and ticking the box, and consider an
individual’s progression in their own journey, you might be
lucky to get about 60 per cent. participation—you might be
lucky. That is roughly what we get voluntarily. The compulsion will not
cut it”.——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 195-204,
Q450-472.]
We heard
similar comments and concerns about the group of vulnerable young
people with higher needs from other witnesses. We also saw written
evidence from Treehouse, the autism charity, and the Campaign for State
Education, which said:
“CASE believes that a
group of young people who have severe personal problems or have become
disenchanted with or disengaged from schooling...are unlikely to
be able to benefit positively from the processes presently envisaged in
the Bill.”
Other groups
cited specific evidence of young people with particular characteristics
that might make it difficult for them to engage in education and
training. The National Children’s Bureau gave us evidence that
in England in 2005, there were about 10,000 mothers under 18 years old,
and that only about 30 per cent. of them were in education, training or
employment. The bureau emphasised that a large number of those
youngsters suffer from post-natal depression and other problems and
restraints, and may prefer to have an option to start training post-19
when their child is slightly older.
We are all
acutely conscious from our constituencies and experience of the
fortunately small but notably high-needs minority of young people who
may be parents, and may have drugs and alcohol problems, mental health
problems, special needs problems or housing problems, as the Minister
for Schools and Learners said in his evidence, that it will be
extremely challenging for them to engage with the compulsion envisaged
in the Bill. In the evidence, even from some of the bodies that were
fairly supportive of the Government—for example,
Barnardo’s—there was a clear indication that they wanted
flexibility to allow for that group of young people, both in giving
exemptions and, I assume, ensuring that provision is available that
meets their needs and does not merely tick a Government
box.
In her evidence,
Ann Pinney from Barnardo’s said that
“there will need to be flexibility
and pragmatism by the attendance panel.”
I shall not touch directly on the
attendance panel issue in this debate, because we shall come to that
when we discuss clauses 40 and 41. She
continued:
“We
hope that such issues would be covered in the guidance issued to the
attendance panel. Clearly, if a young person is suffering ill health or
cannot attend for a short period for another reason, flexibility is
needed.”
She made the
same point as another witness that
“It might be more
helpful to look at it as an entitlement that they could defer if there
was a compelling reason why they could not
attend.”——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 14,
Q31.]
The
same points were made, again powerfully, by Kim Bromley-Derry,
vice-president elect of the Association of Directors of
Children’s Services, although in the evidence from that body the
suggestion was that “reasonable excuse” in the Bill was
likely to be defined very narrowly, which was precisely our concern. In
her evidence, Kim Bromley-Derry referred to
individuals
“suffering
serious emotional or mental trauma, in in-patient facilities or subject
to a high level of psychiatric or psychological
support.”——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 81,
Q187.]
She also referred to
long-term medical
conditions.
I think we
all know that there are many poor young people in every part of the
country who might not meet a hurdle that is quite as high as that. They
may not have got to the stage where they are in a mental health
facility or have been sectioned, particularly in the current
environment when, for both budgetary reasons and wider social reasons,
there is strong pressure to keep people in the community, even when
they have mental health problems. There will be many people who do not
meet that quite high hurdle, but who will find it almost impossible to
engage with the proposals.
Without going into
any great detail, for obvious reasons, I shall give an example of a
recent case in Yeovil of a young man who was essentially homeless, and
was considered by the local Somerset Partnership NHS and Social Care
Trust not to have mental health problems that made him sectionable. He
had had drugs problems, but did not seem to have severe problems at the
time. He was receiving no help from the other agencies, who did not
consider him to be in such a state that they could impose that help
against his wishes, yet he frankly has zero probability in the short
term of engaging with the Bill’s measures, and it may take a lot
of care and attention to sort out some of his issues and to get him
anywhere near being able to engage in the sort of education and
training that we all want.
The amendment probes whether
such individuals should be given a waiver. We are keen to understand
the Government’s view of the extent to which they will invite
some form of waiver process that can be implemented quickly and
effectively, rather than going through the complex mechanisms outlined
in clauses 40 and
41.
3
pm
We also wish to
explore the separate issue of whether other types of support that fall
outside the definition of education and training will be on offer to
youngsters. I want to be clear on the position of the Minister for
Schools and Learners because the evidence that he has
given on the subject has been a little unclear. In his
evidence to the Committee on Tuesday, he said in answer to the hon.
Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton:
“I
believe that we can effectively get to 100 per
cent.”
in take-up by the
16 and 17-year-old
cohort.
“With
the right levels of support for informal and formal learning, we can
get to that point and achieve the cultural change that we require,
particularly given that these measures do not come into effect until
2013 and 2015.”——[Official Report, Education
and Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 207,
Q477.]
But later in the sitting,
he elaborated on what a reasonable excuse might mean in practice. He
said:
“We have
deliberately not defined it in legislation, because we think that local
authorities should be able to take into account individual
circumstances: the more we define it in the Bill, the less that will
happen. However, we will issue guidance, as we are wont to do, to local
authorities on how to interpret the provisions. Examples are: a young
person who does not have a home; and suitable provision for the young
person not being available, such as lack of entry to informal
employment training appropriate for someone who has received full-time
provision; and long-term medical treatment for a young person
recovering from addictions. Those are examples of what might constitute
a reasonable excuse.”——[Official Report,
Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c.
209, Q482.]
That raises as many
questions as it answers, which is perhaps understandable at this stage.
The fundamental question is whether the guidance will be pragmatic and
allow for a large number of types of exception to deal with the
concerns that the Opposition have, or whether it will be narrowly
defined, as local authorities appear to anticipate. It appears that
there will be very high hurdles to be cleared.
The opinion of the local
authorities appears to be supported by the Minister’s evidence,
which was that he thought we could get close to 100 per cent. I suggest
to him that a potentially large number of people will have needs that,
although not of the extreme type described by the local authorities in
their evidence, are extreme enough to make it difficult to engage with
them. The amendment invites the Committee not only to consider that
matter at an early stage in the Bill’s progress, but to consider
whether a more effective and faster route is needed to deal with such
individuals and recognise their problems, rather than taking them
through the attendance notice process, with its appeals and enforcement
mechanisms.
I hope
that the Minister will acknowledge that the group of people that he
talked about the other day in the second part of his
evidence—the homeless and people with medical and mental health
problems—could be a large rump, if I can put it that way, of the
10 per cent. that we will be left with. Local authorities and others
may find it extremely difficult to engage with those young people, who,
sadly, in the rather fractured society that we have today, are found in
large numbers across a large part of the country. We want local
authorities to deal with them consistently. We need it to be clear in
the Bill how flexible the Government are willing to be, because we are
worried about the potential effects of a sledgehammer Bill on young
people who deserve to be dealt with differently, but may not be if the
Government are seeking to get to 100 per cent.
My other point touching on
whether there should be a waiver certificate to be issued by a local
authority relates to what obligation in respect of education and
training will be set out in the Bill and the extent to which that will
be flexible. If it is flexible, we might not need a waiver. If it is
very inflexible, and education and training can take place only in
educational and training settings, we probably need a waiver. I am
unclear from what the Minister has said, and from what is in the Bill,
whether other options will be available that will meet the needs of the
very high-need group of young people who will not be ready to engage
with education and training in any formal sense.
That point was made by James
Cathcart, the chief executive of the British Youth Council, in the
evidence session on Tuesday. He invited the Committee to consider a
fourth choice, saying:
“That does not
necessarily need to be nothing, but it might be an opportunity for
young people to do other constructive activities that have been so
stimulated”.
He mentioned
volunteering. He also
said:
“If the
choices are the first three or a sanction, I think that is where it
feels rather limiting. I know that, indeed, in a lot of the research
done prior to the Bill, many other options are explored and arguments
put on both sides——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 192,
Q444.]
It will be interesting to
hear the Minister’s views on that, and to know to what extent
the options available in the Bill will include, for example, medical
and other support, not simply to go alongside the education and
training obligations, but potentially to tackle the problems that young
people have before they engage in education.
When we touched on that issue
earlier today—although it seems a lot earlier—the
Minister intervened and mentioned and the obligation in clause 4 that
an individual should be in full-time education or training
“at a school, at a college of
further education, at an institution within the higher education sector
or otherwise.”
He invited
us to think that “or otherwise” was quite a significant
concession because it implied that it might be in a much more flexible
setting with a great deal of additional support. However, if we go
further into the Bill and look, for example, at clauses 40 and 41 which
deal with the way in which attendance notices will be applied, it
appears to be more prescriptive regarding the young person’s
obligation to be in education and training per se.
I suggest that, as regards the
practicalities of the Bill, the Minister would command a lot more
support from people from all parts of the House if he was offering
not only the entitlement and obligation to be in
education and training, but another option, which would not be the one
that he described earlier of staying in bed under the
blankets.
The
fourth or third option, or whatever it may be, would give to young
people the very intensive medical and social support that many of the
hardest-to-reach core might need. The Minister must accept that those
individuals might not remotely count as being in
education and training because the support they
receive from the agencies may look nothing like education and training
in the first instance. That might be a very good thing, because some of
the youngsters that I referred to earlier seem to be at a stage where
the prospects of them engaging with anything that looks like
educational training are so remote as to be close to zero.
It is
possible—in many cases it would not be difficult—that
other services could engage with those young people. Local authorities
would have to budget to fund those services—often the budgets
are not there for the young people who need support. If the Government
were to allow a third or fourth option of support that might ultimately
lead to education and training, without education and training being
the obligation throughout that process, we would have considerably
fewer concerns about that practical element of the Bill. It might
ensure that many vulnerable young people who experienced a wide range
of problems in their early life can suddenly access the type of care
and support at the ages of 16 and 17 that they are currently unable to
get.
The hon.
Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton made a good point when he
said that it was sad that we have to pass legislation with threats of
criminalisation and fines in order to encourage other agencies to
embrace their obligations. If the Government are insistent on pushing
the measure through, we might as well ensure that the support that
young people will receive is as relevant as possible to their
needs.
I hope that the
Minister will give us a little more information about the categories of
people who may be considered to have a reasonable excuse not to be in
education and training. Furthermore, does he have an open mind on the
obligations on young people not being restricted to education and
training, but taking in their support needs; and, in particular, those
support needs not being conditional on being in education and training
at the same time, but in some cases preceding the ability to go into
education and
training?
On
how the opt-out would operate and whether there should be a waiver
certificate, it is worth touching on a couple of other categories of
people with whom there might be problems. In her evidence, Alison Wolf
referred to people who might have left a course, as many young people
over the age of 16 do. We assume that that would be dealt with by
interpreting in a reasonable way the potential to opt out through a
reasonable excuse.
We
have not even begun to touch on the wider issue of all those young
people who disengage from the education service before the age of 16.
The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings referred to the
latest available figure of 10.5 per cent. of the year 11 cohort.
Although that figure may be broken down to trim off some who are merely
going on exotic holidays—not to Bognor Regis—we will
still find that a large core group has disengaged well beyond the age
of 16. It remains a serious concern that those young people, who might
not have some of the justifications that I have described, may still be
determined not to engage; they may be determined to avoid the process
of local authority scrutiny and obligation and may, as a consequence of
being criminalised, be even less likely to engage with some of the
services they need and to go into employment. However, that is a wider
issue, which relates to the Government’s decision to go down the
compulsion route.
Jim
Knight:
The hon. Member for Yeovil said that the
amendments were probing amendments. I am grateful for that
clarification, so I shall not dwell unduly on what their effect would
be in practice. If they were accepted, some young people could be
declared exempt from the new duty to participate and denied the
opportunities that it offers because the local authority had given them
a waiver certificate. That is different from a reasonable excuse
exempting them from inappropriate enforcement action, because the
waiver certificate would exempt them from the opportunity. We think
that all young people should be subject to the duty, because it puts
corresponding duties on local authorities to support them. The use of a
waiver certificate by the local authority would allow it to get out of
providing the support that it would otherwise have to provide because
of the duty. I hope that I have explained the particularities of a
waiver certificate.
It
is also clear from evidence given to us last week by our local
government colleagues that they do not consider it appropriate to
exempt people from the duty to participate. John Freeman, of the
Association of Directors of Children’s Services, was very clear
in his support for compulsion. We need to ensure that we have in place
an appropriate learning route for every young person, whatever their
circumstances, which is what we are doing through the changes being
made to the 14-to-19 curriculum and the other things that I described
earlier.
3.15
pm
The
hon. Member for Yeovil is right to refer to clause 4 and the breadth of
the definition of appropriate full-time provision for which it
provides. The Bill draws a broad distinction between full-time
provision and the requirement for accredited part-time learning on
those in full-time employment. However, I shall talk further about that
breadth when we debate clause 4.
In answer to the hon.
Gentleman’s question, I have an open mind when looking at the
range of support to be offered. I want to consider the evidence given
by witnesses from Barnardo’s, during the first evidence session,
through to Fairbridge at the end, from whom we heard about all sorts of
good practice. We have also heard from other organisations such as
Rainer, which did not give evidence. They all have something to offer,
which is why I disagree with him when he describes it as a sledgehammer
Bill. It is capable of being much more
forensic.
Mr.
Laws:
May I test how forensic the Bill will be? Is the
Minister minded to allow, in clause 4 and elsewhere, for the
possibility that the support offered to a young person under an
obligation to take up education and training might not include
education and training throughout the entire period, in order to
resolve whatever health or other problems that the young person might
have?
Jim
Knight:
I am certainly minded to support the notion that
some individuals will need intensive, quite possibly full-time, support
to get them into a position where they can access and engage with
education and training. The important thing is that that support leads
them towards a position where they can participate fully in what we
would normally describe as education
and training. Given the addiction problems that some people might have,
it would be entirely appropriate that that support prioritises
those problems before engagement in education and
training.
Mr.
Laws:
That was a very helpful answer, but I would like to
press the Minister further. How patient and forensic is he willing to
be? Will he acknowledge that, on some occasions, the period of support
required for young people with severe needs prior to education and
training could be very long—more than one year and perhaps even
two?
Jim
Knight:
It might be, but Barnardo’s and, quite
possibly, the Prince’s Trust quoted examples in which short,
intensive engagement over a few months can really turn things around,
get someone engaged, and ready and wanting to learn. The hon. Gentleman
should not run away with the notion that I am conceding that people
could go 18 months in support not related to education and training.
The aim will always be for them to engage in the acquisition of useful
skills and learning so that they can achieve better in
life.
We must ensure
that all young people have access to the right support to address their
individual needs. Targeted youth support can play a very important role
here, as well as the Connexions service. Flexibility, safeguards and
local discretion must be built into the enforcement system so that no
young person enters enforcement inappropriately. I could detain
Committee for some time talking about how we intend to support
re-engagement as well as prevention while the young person is still in
learning. For example, local authorities have a duty under clause 10 to
promote participation and a duty under clause 69 to promote their own
co-operation with relevant partners; and under clause 11, education
institutions have a duty to promote good attendance. There is a whole
series of clauses about prevention and re-engagement.
There is also
a series of clauses dealing with situations in which young people drop
out of post-16 education and training. Under clause 54, all young
people will have access to a Connexions personal advisor. Under clause
14, learning providers will have a duty to alert the Connexions advisor
that a young person has dropped out. Under clause 54, the Connexions
service will identify barriers to young people’s participation
and will work with them to overcome them. That is defined as being part
of the function of Connexions and could mean providing support and/or
identifying appropriate provision.
I could detain the Committee
talking about other clauses, as well. There are measures on safeguards
both before and during any enforcement process. It is worth stressing
that under clause 39, local authorities
“may issue an attendance
notice”.
That is not a
duty. Local authorities will use their knowledge of young
people’s circumstances to judge whether it would be beneficial
to do so, and they will do so only after they have provided support for
the relevant young person and identified an appropriate learning option
but the young person refuses to participate. In some ways, the clause,
and the use of the words “may issue”, deliver what the
amendment seeks to do, but more efficiently.
There are
also measures on appeals and the way in which the attendance panel
works, which we will debate later. I could talk about the support that
we want to provide and develop over the next five years for people
who are without or estranged from their parents, as
well as for young offenders and young people with special educational
needs, learning difficulties or mental health problems. There will also
be support for teenage parents, young people in care or who are carers,
and young people who are self-employed or employed in a family
business. There is a long list; I have all sorts of wisdom here with
which I could enlighten the Committee.
Support is an important part of
the story and is an important reason why we need to have the duties I
have described and to change the culture of participation up to the age
of 18. We, the Government, are forcing ourselves to build capacity
locally that gives a full range of support for the full range of
circumstances in which young people live. There is a positive message
attached to the Bill: it cannot be acceptable for any young person to
be deemed too hard to engage and for us to give up on them. To some
extent, that is the implication of some of the comments that the hon.
Member for Yeovil made earlier. I know that that is not what he thinks,
but some of his comments could be interpreted in that way. We must
raise our expectations for such young people and their expectations of
themselves. On that basis, I ask him to withdraw his
amendment.
Mr.
Laws:
I am grateful for the Minister’s response.
The intention behind the amendments certainly is not
to give up on the young people concerned. It is to
ensure that the legislation will be shaped around people’s
needs, rather than people having to be shaped around its needs or the
Government’s desire to meet a particular target on
participation. Sadly, a sledgehammer approach has often been taken in
the past across all levels of government, not least in legislation on
social security and dealing with vulnerable people. Such approaches
fail to understand the acute and severe difficulties that many people
face in their daily lives. I very much hope that the Minister will set
out a system that is based on the forensic approach to people’s
needs, as he described it, rather than a sledgehammer
approach.
I am
pleased that the Minister appears to be open to the
possibility—I hope I do not misquote him; I am sure he will
correct me if I do. I think that he said he was open to the possibility
that young people with identified very high needs might, under the
duties in the Bill, end up in a supported setting that might not have
education and training as part of it. However, he is potentially open
to a third or fourth option that will give young people with very high
needs the support—medical and other—that they need to go
on to education and training.
Jim
Knight:
Let me just add the crucial bit at the end:
the measure must move people towards full
participation in education and training, so they can achieve the skills
and qualifications needed in order to progress further and improve
their life chances.
Mr.
Laws:
I accept that addition, although it is difficult for
us to know whether a duty might then be placed on a young person to be
in education and training for a two-year period, given that the longer
they spend in a supported setting, the more they
will use up that legal duty to be in education and training between 16
and 17. If the interventions work, it will be inevitable that after
they successfully complete the process, those young people will be much
more capable of engaging with society, including in the workplace, than
they would otherwise have been. I ask the Minister to allow for the
possibility that, for a small number of people, the process of being in
support will be longer than many of us would like because of their
acute needs. When we come to later clauses about how the attendance
panels will operate, I hope that we will think about how their
responsibilities can be influenced or expanded to ensure that they have
that as part of their available armoury.
The Minister also sought to
give assurances on the categories of people who might have reasonable
excuse for not being in education or training because of their personal
circumstances. There is an open field here, and I understand why the
Government would do want to start citing examples of
people who would be exempt—the list of exempt people could
become quite large. I flag up, however, that at least in my mind there
is still uncertainty about whether we are talking about a large number
of young people who could potentially be exempt. That could include
categories of young parents and people with mental health and drug and
alcohol problems, who are sadly a much larger number of young people
than we would like, and who are therefore a greater challenge than we
might think.
I draw
attention to the Minister’s comments about the discretion of
local authorities in relation to attendance notices. He is right to say
that they “may” issue the attendance notice rather than
being obliged to do so, but that also raises the issue of an
inconsistent approach across the country between some local authorities
and panels that take a sympathetic approach, and others that do not.
Given that we are talking about compulsion, that could raise various
concerns across the country about individuals being dealt with in
different ways.
I am
mildly encouraged by the Minister’s comments, but I have
experience from past Bills of being mildly encouraged without long-term
benefit. The Minister’s comments are helpful, but we will want
to pick at these issues on many further occasions
during the proceedings. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause 1 ordered to stand
part of the
Bill.
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