Examination of Witnesses (Questions 536
- 539)
TUESDAY 27 APRIL 2004
RT HON
CHARLES CLARKE
MP, RT HON
JOHN HUTTON
MP AND MR
CHRIS POND
MP
Q536 Chairman: We are obviously very
pleased to have three ministers in front of the Committee this
afternoon and we are grateful to you for coordinating your diaries
in the way that you have for what is a very important inquiry
for us. If I could kick off and really go straight to the heart
of the issue and start with a question to you, Mr Clarke. One
of the things that caused some surprise to some in the letter
that you sent to us was that you are not intending to use any
ID card in relation to access to education for those under 16.
Am I right in thinking that there are no nationality or immigration
status conditions for entry to a maintained school and is that
a matter of concern? I take that to mean that the children of
a family who are not here legitimately would be able to access
state education without any checks being carried out.
Mr Clarke: You are essentially
right, Mr Denham, and no, it is not a matter of concern. All our
proposals in this area relate to the post-16 position. As I said
in my letter to you, there are four areas where we feel that the
ID card would help: in our proposals for a Children's Service
passport, in our Connexions Card for 16 to 19 year olds that we
already issue; in access to post-16 education and training; and
in the development of our proposed Unique Learner Number infrastructure
which is designed to help with personalised learning for every
individual. In each of those we think the ID card has something
to contribute, but none of those relates to the pre-16 phase of
education where we do not see ID cards having any major contribution
to make.
Mr Taylor: A point of order, Mr Chairman.
I am concerned about the lack of facilities for members of the
public in this meeting. I do not suppose for a moment there is
anything we can do about it, but I did not want this Committee
to go on sitting here unaware of the fact that the public were
in some difficulty here in following our proceedings.
Chairman: That is obviously a difficulty,
Mr Taylor, and thank you for raising it. We obviously cannot change
the room at this stage. I did indicate that I had no objection
to members of the public standing rather than being excluded from
the room as long as they are not disrupting proceedings, which
clearly they are not.
Mr Taylor: I just thought it rather inconsiderate
not to register the fact that we were aware of them.
Q537 Chairman: If I could go back
to the question of schools. Mr Clarke, are you saying to the Committee
that you do not think the issue of whether some people might get
access to state school education even though they had no immigration
status here is really an issue of any particular size or importance
that might be dealt with?
Mr Clarke: There is an issue,
it is an important matter of policy and it is part of an ongoing
dialogue about how we deal with migration to this country. I answered
your question in the context of the ID cards debate because I
do not believe that the ID cards debate has any locus in that
precise discussion. I went on further to say that I myself do
not see any likelihood of a change in the status arrangements
that we are describing in this area and the current law of the
land which says that we have a legal obligation to educate all
children of the appropriate age within our education system as
one which I think is the correct legal status and we have no plans
of any kind to revisit that. That is not to say that the debate
cannot proceed in these matters in all areas, but that is not
in any way a part of our approach on ID cards, which, apart from
general support for the principle which I personally have, I think
is the right approach and it has some specific practical advantages
for the education service in the areas which I identify.
Q538 Chairman: That is a very clear
statement of the position. Thank you. Do you have any idea of
what the current cost of abuse of the system post-16 might be
and, therefore, potentially the gains of introducing stronger
identity checks?
Mr Clarke: No, we do not. There
is a whole range of provision, including private provision but
for people post-16 and there are a very large number of institutions,
including some which in the classic language are bogus institutions,
which are specifically designed to help some people evade our
immigration regulations. In terms of the overall costs and so
on of the fraud, we do not have a costing of that, but we believe
that, nevertheless, there would be a benefit in having an ID card
indicating people's access to post-16 education for the other
reasons I mentioned.
Q539 Chairman: What are colleges
doing at the moment to check identity and entitlement, and how
much progress could you make by instituting more stringent checks
at the moment without the benefit of the ID card?
Mr Clarke: They do ask for identification;
a variety of forms of identification are required. One of the
virtues of an ID card is that instead of a variety of different
forms of identification we would have one clear and unequivocal
form of identification. If you then follow the question after
that, how much follow-up is there by colleges of people who are
coming into a college and attending and so on, not a lot is the
current state of affairs, but we think if there is a proper ID
card regime that will help. There is one qualification I should
add to that which is that, as you will be aware, Mr Denham, we
announced at the beginning of last week our development and extension
of the Education Maintenance Allowances to go national, which
we think has been a very positive scheme. It is important in that
context that people who are in receipt of an Education Maintenance
Allowance do actually attend the courses for which they are receiving
that allowance to attend. I said in the press launch we had last
week about this question that that was a matter which we would
give attention to, but again the biometric ID card would help
with that.
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