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Mr. Blunkett: The answer is unequivocally yes. Where collaboration and co-operation do not work, they must.
The structures are designed to achieve that. A willingness from the leaders of the new adult learning inspectorate and Ofsted will be crucial to ensuring that the system works in the interests of young people.
Part V covers a range of miscellaneous issues, including the assignment of assets and the new powers that I mentioned a few moments ago on post-16 collaboration. It also includes clause 98, inserted by the House of Lords, which withdraws the rights of parents to decide on admissions at local level. Let me make it clear that we shall overturn the withdrawal of those rights in Committee.
Clauses 103 to 112 provide for the new co-ordinated arrangements for the establishment of the youth support service, ConneXions, providing joined-up thinking in provision for 13 to 19-year-olds, linking adolescence with emergence into adulthood and ensuring that, for the first time, the whole of youth support service provision will be within statute. This new co-ordinated approach will cover the delivery and enhancement of careers services and guidance, mentoring, education and social work, the traditional youth work service and the funding of the voluntary and not for profit sector as well as the traditional local government youth support service.
I pay tribute to those at local level who have agreed to provide the pathfinder areas for the new programme. We intend to learn lessons from them in developing a national system. Even though Matthew Parris is somewhere in the frosty cold of the--where is he? [Hon. Members: "The southern Indian ocean."] I shall have to have a geography hour as well as a literacy and numeracy hour.
As Matthew Parris is well across the world, freezing to death, I want to avoid his successor being able to write a sketch about the roll-out syndrome.
Mr. Phil Hope (Corby):
The Conservative reasoned amendment says that the Bill would curtail funding for the statutory and voluntary youth service. The ConneXions report published by the Government describes the Government's intention that local education authorities should continue to provide a youth service and retain the powers to do so and that the ConneXions service will have an important role in ensuring that all youth service activity is effectively co-ordinated and coherent and that gaps in provision are filled. Will my right hon. Friend assure that House that the Government support the voluntary and statutory youth services and believe that they have a major role to play in helping 13 to 19-year-olds?
Mr. Blunkett:
I certainly shall. I was a little mystified when I read the reasoned amendment, which I urge the House to reject. The notion that we would not continue funding may be a dream of the Opposition's that would enable them to put out leaflets saying that we have demolished what we value. I regret to tell them that, even in their wildest dreams, we are not going to offer them that opportunity. The amendment also says that we lack strategic vision and continuity for progress to adult life. The youth support service ConneXions is designed to ensure joined-up thinking and action for the 13 to 19-year-old cohort in a way that has not been possible before. I know that the job of the Opposition is to oppose, but, in learning how to oppose, it is best to pick on things that are realistic rather than making things up.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome):
Leaving aside the way in which the right hon. Gentleman has
Mr. Blunkett:
We intend to expand, not contract, the role of the careers service, including careers education, to ensure that all young people at school receive the support and help that they need and to ensure that, in the transition, we target those at greatest risk, which makes sense to everyone.
We are happy to work with the careers service in the way in which it has said that it is prepared to work with us to develop the new service. It is one reason why we want pathfinder and pilot programmes, rather than one big bang. There is much to be learned about what works and what does not, securing the confidence of those who are delivering services at the moment.
I thank those in the careers service, youth services and others who are doing a first-rate job, often heavily underfunded. I hope that, subject to my right hon. Friends in the Treasury, we will be able to do something about that in the spending review.
Clause 117 was inserted last week in an extraordinary debate in the House of Lords on sex education, in which one of the noble peers, Lord Moran, said that he believed that stable relationships might apply to necrophilia. That sort of debate has not helped to shed light on the issues that we are dealing with--sensitive, difficult issues that have been grossly misrepresented.
The noble Baroness Young moved the amendment that is in the Bill in a slightly more measured tone, although she chose to eliminate aspects of the amendment that I had negotiated with those involved in a range of organisations and that protected young people against prejudice. We cannot accept something in the Bill that deliberately eliminates efforts in schools to reduce prejudice and misunderstanding. We will remove the Baroness's amendment and come back in due course with the way in which we intend to proceed.
In the meantime, I make it clear that, subject to the consultation, I will issue the guidance to schools, on which there appears to be very little disagreement--which illustrates our difficulty in ensuring that light, rather than heat, has been available on the issue.
Mr. Gerald Howarth:
Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that my noble Friend Baroness Young has done a fantastic job in the other place, that she is widely regarded as having stood up for the protection of children throughout the country and that many parents have written to hon. Members on both sides of the House to salute her stand? Is it his intention to reverse her amendment, which was accepted by the other place and which said:
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough):
I am sorry to be dim, but will my right hon. Friend clarify whether he plans to remove all of clause 117? My concerns about the clause do not centre on the content of the advice that he has given to schools, but on the wisdom of including such detailed proposals in primary legislation. I hope that he is committed to removing the clause in its entirety, and not just those elements of the Government's amendment that were changed in the House of Lords.
Mr. Blunkett:
Given the changes that the House of Lords made, progress will not be made simply by eliminating the words that were used. I intend to go forward with the guidance, which is being consulted on separately.
The original objective of the proposals in the Bill was precisely to underpin the reassurance sought by many in the country that we were not promoting forms of sexual orientation in the classroom. We are not doing that, as the guidance makes clear.
Very few people who have been debating the matter in the newspapers or in the House of Lords seem to have bothered to have read the guidance. That is a great shame, for them and for the rational thinking that democracy demands. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister rightly said yesterday that it would be absurd for us to expect teachers to promote sexuality--their own or someone else's--in the classroom. That is not their job, and we would not countenance it. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) will find that the situation is she would wish it to be.
Mr. Desmond Swayne (New Forest, West):
The Secretary of State implied that the agreement struck with the Roman Catholic Church and the established Church was an agreement with those institutions, rather than with particular individuals in them. The correspondence that I have received leads me to believe that the individuals spoke largely for themselves, as opposed to the Churches that they represent.
The general objectives are that the pupils--
30 Mar 2000 : Column 522
(a) learn about the nature of marriage as the key building block of society?
He believes that, but other members of the Cabinet do not. Does he intend to invite the House to remove the requirement that was inserted in the other place that any guidance that is issued should be subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament?
Mr. Blunkett:
I have already made the position absolutely clear. I said that I was intent on the House being asked to remove clause 117 for the reasons that I spelt out. I believe that marriage and stable relationships are key building blocks for community and society. I also believe that we should teach the nature of marriage and family life to children for the raising of children. The structure that we provide to young children in school is crucial to the health and well-being of our society in years to come. I was pleased that the Anglican, Roman Catholic and the free Churches believed that that was a sensible way forward. I regret that the House of Lords did not take that view.
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