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Mr. Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con): The Paymaster General has generously, and interestingly, supplied a good deal of information about the advice that she has been given by parliamentary draftsmen on a specific amendment in a specific clause. Would she be prepared to commit to provide similar information on any amendments that we table on this or subsequent Bills?
Dawn Primarolo: Indeed, if there is a comment from parliamentary draftsmen on the phrasing of amendments, it is my practice in Finance Bills, where this normally occurs, to explain that advice. That rarely occurs, but I am happy to ensure that that continues to be done in future. As a principle in the past—I remember this well from being in opposition—
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parliamentary draftsmen's opinion was only used and disclosed when it was absolutely necessary, not as a means of avoiding doing something that could otherwise be undertaken. It has certainly been my practice as a Minister only to use it in that way.
2.45 pm
While I am on my feet, I wonder whether I may say a few words on clause 1 as it would be amended, should my hon. Friend's amendment be carried. The Bill is solely meant to define those young people to whom child benefit is payable. It is short and straightforward. None the less, it is a significant milestone in the Government's commitment to remove the financial barriers for young people who stay in education or training after they have reached the age of 16.
As we discussed on Second Reading, the Government's ambition is opportunity for all. That means making sure that all young people have the support and incentives that they need to reach the age of 19 ready for higher education or skilled employment. The Bill, and essentially clause 1, strengthens those choices. The Bill primarily enables measures and the substance of the reform to be set out in regulations, which we have already talked about. That is why they were published in advance, and as I have mentioned, the hon. Member for Buckingham was charitable enough on Second Reading to say that they were
''a model of clarity and of brevity''—[Official Report, 12 January 2005; Vol. 429, c. 335].
The regulations introduce no changes to the conditions that apply to those young people who elect to follow full-time education. They will be treated as a qualifying young person if they follow a course at a college or school which is not advanced education, or where on average, during normal term-time, at least 12 hours a week are spent receiving tuition, undertaking practical work or supervised study, or taking exams. The regulations will also introduce a simplification of the present arrangements governing the period of uncertainty following the end of compulsory education and progression into full-time education, training or employment. They allow a person to be treated as a qualifying young person until the end of August following their 16th birthday.
The most significant changes introduced by the regulations concern unwaged trainees and the age cut-off point. In the Budget last year, the Government announced their intention to extend child benefit and child tax credit to unwaged trainees, those in Government-arranged training and 19-year-olds finishing their courses. That followed consultation on the best way to proceed.
The proposal to extend financial support to new groups of learners was widely welcomed, and a range of views about how best that could be achieved was expressed in consultation, the responses to which have been published. We also circulated the regulations in draft and the regulatory impact assessment to key stakeholders in October last year. Those set out in more detail our intended approach. The general view
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was that the extension should be as comprehensive as possible. That is an understandable perspective from organisations representing the interests of marginalised young people.
In my consideration of the extension, I was mindful of two unintended consequences of reform. First, we should not create an incentive for young people to take gap years during their education rather than afterwards. Secondly, employers should not be given an incentive to provide unwaged training over waged training. The age cut-off, extending up to a final cut-off at 20 rather than 21, was a cautious response stimulated by the lack of hard facts in that area.
The policy intention is to give young people a little extra time to finish a course, not to dramatically alter the patterns of post-16 participation. With little data about the possible impact of extending to 21, I thought it more appropriate to extend to 20 and then monitor the impact of the extension, with a commitment to keep the age limit under review, which of course I will do.
Our inability accurately to predict the behavioural effects explains why we have estimated only a £10 million differential in costs between those two options. We know that that is an underestimate, but only when we have more evidence of those behavioural effects will we be able to estimate the true costs. That is the advantage of taking the regulatory route to make powers, so that we will be able to respond more readily to changes in expectations and behaviour.
The risk about employers' behaviour exists already. The devolved organisations should manage the market for training in their area and their contracts with employers. In my considerations, I listened to the Learning and Skills Council in England, which prefers naming specific programmes for learning, as it believes that that would make it easier for it to manage the progression from unwaged to waged training. Naming programmes for training in regulations was also thought to have the advantage of clarifying those regulations and making them transparent. I have listened to the voluntary sector, and have named all the programmes of Government-sponsored training in the UK that will have unwaged trainees on them in April 2006. That covers almost 80,000 unwaged trainees in total.
The Government set the long-term vision.
Mr. Laws: I am grateful to the Paymaster General for amplifying the comments that she made on the Floor of the House. That amplification is extremely useful. She will recall an earlier debate in which I pressed her and the Economic Secretary to say whether the regulations would not cover a certain category of unwaged trainees because those trainees are not on Government-sponsored schemes. I am not sure how many such individuals there may be or what types of scheme they may be on. If the Paymaster General cannot give me a precise figure or estimate, can she at least touch on the position of those individuals?
Dawn Primarolo: The Government are in precisely that position. As I suggested, many of those whom we consulted would have preferred us to include all
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unwaged trainees. Our problem was definition, scope, knowing where everyone was and being able to estimate the costs and possible effects. That is not to say that we do not still have to find a way of developing this work. This measure is a sort of safety shot, and is a first step towards venturing into this area. That is why, frankly, I decided to stretch what information I had to limit the measure to the Government-sponsored schemes. This matter is not closed; I simply could not credibly adopt the position suggested by some hon. Members. Some Members may believe that the position at which I have arrived is incredible, but I believed that I had to draw the line there, given the information available to me. I could not, in all honesty, have drawn on the pilots and the research from the education maintenance allowances because they did not offer the same arrangements.
This is a substantial area. The review sets out several steps to be taken over some time. We need to discuss those steps, and I was about to allude to them very briefly.
Mr. Francois: The Paymaster General has generously acknowledged that, in response to the Government's consultation paper, several respondents said that they would prefer a much more general inclusion. I shall not read out all those representations now; they are in the consultation paper. Does she accept that there is some confusion about the plethora of support available to young people and how complicated that support is? If she wants to go down this route, is she prepared to take reasonable steps to publicise exactly that list, so that people who are trying to decide their options can be more aware of the choices available to them, and where they will and will not be able to receive financial support? I suspect that if one stopped most young people in the street and asked them whether a particular course qualified for this support, they would not know much about it.
Dawn Primarolo: With respect, the proposed arrangements are modest and very clear. Several hon. Members referred on Second Reading to the report on financial independence for 16 to 19-year-olds, which contains a flow chart—I cannot remember on which page—that attempts to show all the different ways in which legislation has had an impact, particularly on that group, over the years. I should say that the chart is the result of my asking for that information, perfectly openly, as a Minister. I sat down with young people and tried to draw a chart. In the end, Centrepoint very helpfully invested considerable time in doing that.
When one follows one flow of information, one can see what the policy objective was and at whom it was targeted. The problem, however, was that when one looked at the totality, one found that it was highly complex. Therefore, the commitment set out in the long-term proposals, towards which we must try to move incrementally, was to a coherent system of support for 16 to 19-year-olds engaged in the approved activity—training, work or courses at college or school. On the basis of consultation, we need carefully
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to consider which activities outside Government-supported training schemes we would need to include. The Bill is the first step in implementing that long-term vision.
The young people and representative organisations that I met made clear time and again their feelings about the little, niggling rule that meant that someone on a level 2 qualification—they may have had only six months left of, say, a two-year course when the cut-off came at 19—was forced off the course because of their family circumstances, leaving them in huge difficulties as regards where to go afterwards. Having consulted—particularly those organisations and those young people, who gave their time and worked tirelessly—I thought that we at least needed to put something on the table, and the Bill is the modest first step towards dealing with the issue.
The issue is not simple and straightforward. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the report, he will see how work by other Departments interacts. In the case of the Department for Work and Pensions, there is the operation of income support and the estrangement rules, which go back a long way. The changes for 16 to 19-year-olds come from what were called the Fowler reviews, which took place under the Conservative Government when they removed income support to that age range. The interaction of such things makes for a difficult mix when it comes to getting the steps right. However, the objective must be—for the reasons that I gave on Second Reading, with which the hon. Gentleman will agree—to get as many of our 16 to 19-year-olds in training and education and pursuing qualifications, and the Bill is the first step on that path.
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