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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 CommitteeTuesday 5 February 2008(Morning)[John Bercow in the Chair]Education and Skills BillFurther written evidence to be reported to the HouseE&S 13 Institute of
Directors
E&S 14 Association
for Careers
Guidance
Clause 2Duty
to participate in education or
training
Amendment
proposed [31 January]: No. 4, in
clause 2, page 1, leave out line 12 and
insert—
‘(1) A local
authority in England shall enable and assist a person belonging to its
area to whom this Part applies
to—’.—[Mr.
Gibb.]
10.30
am
Question
again proposed, That the amendment be
made.
The
Chairman:
I remind the Committee that with this we are
taking amendment No. 15, in clause 10, page 5, line 35, leave out from
‘applies’ to end of line
36.
Mr.
David Laws (Yeovil) (LD): Good morning, Mr.
Bercow, to you and all Members of the Committee. It is a delight to be
back again considering clause 2. I will speak relatively briefly on the
amendments, because we covered quite similar ground—our concerns
about the compulsion and criminalisation elements of the
Bill—under clause 1. However, I would like to express the
Liberal Democrats’ support for amendments Nos. 4 and 15, which
would turn the provision into an entitlement rather than a
duty.
That is very
much in keeping with our approach to the Bill, and specifically our
three concerns, the first of which relates to the Government’s
approach to 16 and 17-year-olds in assuming that compulsion is
reasonable, in spite of their adult status in many other respects.
Secondly, we are concerned about the lack of flexibility and support
for many vulnerable young people, which we discussed under clause 1.
Thirdly, we are concerned about young people’s employment
prospects, which we may discuss later. For those reasons, and because
we believe that young people will engage more effectively with
education and training if they do so on a voluntary basis, we support
the amendments and await the Minister’s reply with
interest.
I want to
pick up a couple of points made by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton when he moved the amendments. He raised the issue of the
sanctions which would follow if the amendments
are not successful and if the provisions in the Bill remain an
obligation rather than an entitlement. In his evidence to the
Committee, the Minister stated his view that the Government’s
estimates regarding the use of sanctions were at the bleak end of the
scale of enforcement. We asked whether he would be willing to set out
for us in detail in a written note, or perhaps in an oral response,
what assumptions were used. In oral evidence, there was an indication
that the assumptions
“are
based very precisely on the nearest equivalent we can find in the
existing system for the rates of default and so
on.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills
Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 208,
Q481.]
The Committee will
remember that we had some very precise estimates of the effect of the
sanctions, including 111 default orders, 667 parenting orders and 33
breaches of parenting orders. It would be interesting to know what the
assumptions were and what were the nearest equivalent enforcement
mechanisms that were used to produce those estimates. The Committee
will want to consider whether those equivalent mechanisms for
enforcement are comparable, given some of the challenges that will be
faced as a result of the Bill.
Will the
Minister say more about the relationship between the various categories
of sanction that he set out in numerical terms in his evidence to the
Committee? The following figures were given by the Minister: attendance
notices, 6,000; fixed penalty notices, 1,500; youth court fines, 278;
youth default orders, 111; parenting orders, 667; and breaches of
parenting orders, 33. Looked at in very broad-brush terms, those
figures suggest a compliance rate of 75 per cent. with attendance
notices—I may be missing something—and 75 to 80 per cent.
in relation to youth court fines. Many of us would feel that those
estimates imply a high success rate in enforcement. We wonder whether
those estimates of the effectiveness will be realised. Will the
Minister say something about the underlying
assumptions?
The
Minister for Schools and Learners (Jim Knight):
To
facilitate the proceedings of the Committee, let me say that I intend
either to speak in detail to the point that the hon. Gentleman has
raised when we discuss chapter 5, which deals with attendance notices
and enforcement, or to have written to the Committee by then setting
out my thinking. I do not intend to respond in detail to those points
today because I think it is more appropriate to deal with them
under chapter
5.
Mr.
Laws:
I am grateful for the Minister’s response. I
raised those points because they came up when the hon. Member for
Bognor Regis and Littlehampton moved the amendments. I am happy for the
Minister to respond as he wishes, but if he is going to produce
something in writing, I urge him to do so as soon as possible. In other
Committees, which have not always met the high standards that I am sure
he sets, documents have had a habit of turning up rather
late—sometimes on the final day of the Committee, if not later.
It would be welcome to have the information well in advance.
Will the Minister also confirm
that the figures that he cited regarding the enforcement mechanisms are
based on the assumption that the take-up of education and training
places among these cohorts will increase
in line with the Government forecasts between now and 2013 and 2015? If
that does not happen, and the Government are not successful in raising
participation among that age group up to 90 per cent. from 80 per
cent., the numbers could become much bigger. I hope that he will also
say something about the relationship between parenting orders and
breaches of parenting orders, where there seems to be even more
optimism than about attendance notice
enforcement.
As the hon.
Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton pointed out, the
non-attendance rates for young people in education and training are
already incredibly high for those coming up to the age of 16. About
10.5 per cent. of the year 11 age cohort are persistently absent.
Although the Committee discussed what that meant—the new figures
from the Government will shed some light—such statistics give us
cause to be sceptical about the extent to which an enforcement
mechanism will work with the most hard-to-reach cohort—the top 5
per cent. We must pause for thought about how effective these sanctions
will be in terms of pursuing those individuals. That is one reason why
we believe that an approach based on opportunities and entitlements,
with appropriate provision offered, is not only more in keeping with
Liberal Democrat philosophy, but is also likely in the long term to be
more effective and meet the concerns of not only liberals and liberal
Conservatives but some of the other Conservative
Members.
Jim
Knight:
I have listened with care to the debate. Hon.
Members have rightly identified the amendments as central to the debate
about the Bill. The question I would put to you, Mr. Bercow,
is this: is the status quo enough? Is it enough to say that we want
every young person to have the benefits of participation but not to
will the means to achieve that end? For the truth is that the status
quo is what the amendments would leave us with. By taking away the
element of compulsion, they would take away the most important elements
of the Bill: its impact on the wider system of education and training
and its ability to galvanise the system to achieve change.
The Committee does not need to
take my word for the central importance of compulsion to achieving the
result that we want. We heard it time and again from witnesses
representing many different parts of the system. The National Union of
Teachers said:
“The fact that it is a
requirement to stay until 18 triggers a culture shift on its
own.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills
Public Bill Committee, 24 January 2008; c. 145,
Q335.]
Barnardo’s
said
“ultimately, after
all the safeguards within the Bill, our position is that we support
compulsion as a means of ensuring that the most disadvantaged young
people have their horizons broadened and are prepared for a world of
work, rather than a world of benefits and long-term
poverty.”——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 4,
Q1.]
The Association of Directors
of Children’s Services said:
“In our view, without the
end point of the legal duties, and the compulsion through the law, the
remaining changes to culture, the NEETs strategy, and things such as
diplomas and apprenticeships, will have an effect, but there will not
be the expectation
that”
participation
“is genuinely and seriously the
norm and that it is the way to do
things.”——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 72,
Q174.]
We see that the picture is perhaps not as
clear as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton would have
liked to present it. The Association of Learning Providers, for
example, said:
“The message clearly
embodied in raising the participation age to 18 is that it is in every
young person’s interest to be on a quality route with quality
training. Clearly, that is the right
message,”——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 24 January 2008; c. 122,
Q299.]
The Local Government
Association said:
“We do not disagree with
the intent, but that intent should be seen in the context of the
overall direction in which to go—not as one of the prime
elements but as a final sanction to be applied in
extremis.”——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 72,
Q174.]
I do not disagree with
that. I have already said that I expect the enforcement of the duty to
be a last resort. I say the same as many of our witnesses—that
placing a duty on young people to participate is crucial to achieving
our goals, which the Opposition say they share, of meeting the future
skills needs of this country and ensuring that all our young people
have the best possible chance to succeed.
The duty to participate does not
take away from young people the responsibility to take decisions about
their own education, as the hon. Gentleman claimed. As we have
discussed, the range of options that young people will have to
fulfil the duty is extensive. We expect young people to take
responsibility for making decisions about which of those options is
appropriate for them, supported by their parents, schools
and the Connexions service. The only option we are removing is
that of doing nothing, and we are doing so with the backing of strong
evidence that remaining in education or training is in the best
interests of young people.
Of course, compulsion must be
backed by support and by other duties across the system, and the Bill
puts those elements in place. Local authorities will already have,
under cause 10, a clear duty to promote effective participation. In
addition, we have the Connexions service, which supports young people
and helps them to participate. The duty to ensure that that service is
provided currently rests with the Secretary of State, but clause 54
will transfer the responsibility directly to local authorities. The
service is part of the vision that we set out in “Youth
Matters” for integrated youth support services delivered by
children’s trusts in every local authority area. Under the Bill,
local authorities will also be required to have regard to tough new
national standards to ensure that the advice and guidance that they
provide is of good quality.
Mr.
Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con): Does the
Minister not believe that the provisions he is putting in
place—those increased opportunities—will not be
sufficient to increase
participation?
Jim
Knight:
I agree with some of the witnesses that I have
quoted. The Association of Directors of Children’s Services, for
example, has said that the provisions will certainly have an effect on
participation. We were putting in place measures to achieve our target
of 90 per cent. participation, but they will not be
sufficient to have an impact on every young person in the country, which
is the clear aim of the legislation.
The Learning and Skills Council
already has a duty to ensure sufficient and appropriate provision for
all 16 to 19-year-olds. The Bill does not affect that duty.
From this year, we implemented the September guarantee
everywhere—guaranteeing for the first time an offer of an
appropriate learning place for every young person leaving year 11. We
have also announced that we will introduce an “age 17”
guarantee. We are improving the choices that young people have at 16 by
increasing access to apprenticeships, which we know are popular with
young people, and introducing new diplomas. From 2013—the year
that the legislation first takes effect—all young people will be
entitled to study for a diploma in any one of 14 lines at three levels.
From the same date, any young person who wants to and who meets the
entry requirements will be able to pursue an
apprenticeship.
10.45
am
We
are developing the foundation learning tier—I have been through
these things with this Committee before—and we announced in the
children’s plan that we will be piloting a new return to
learning programme, which I will talk about more when we discuss clause
4. Young people have access to financial support to participate in
learning through the education maintenance allowance. Evaluation shows
that the EMA has had an impact on participation and
attainment.
The
combination of clauses 2 and 10 ensures that local authorities must
support and enable young people to participate. Amendment No. 4 adds
nothing to that—but it would remove the crucial ingredient.
Compulsion is the catalyst which ensures that the duties, the reforms
and the programme of change transform the operation of the system, so
that the system understands that every young person must be engaged,
every need must be met and no-one must be left out. Without the
requirement on young people to participate, the incentive on the system
to engage the hardest to engage is removed, and the requirement to get
a full entitlement in place for every learner is reduced. The urgent
need to support every young person—no matter how great their
need—is lost.
As long as we have an optional
system, the young people who are least likely to choose to participate
are those who are most disadvantaged and most marginalised already, yet
it is they who potentially have the most to gain from continuing their
learning. I have consistently argued that it cannot be acceptable for
any young person to be deemed to be too hard to engage. We must raise
our expectations of these young people and their expectations of
themselves.
Mr.
John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): The
whole Committee shares the Minister’s anxiety about those young
people who are lost to the system, and his determination that young
people should be encouraged to acquire a thirst for learning, but, in
essence, is he not really saying that compulsion will be introduced and
to meet its objectives, a series of exciting and attractive measures
will be put in place? He must surely acknowledge that those exciting
and
attractive measures will of themselves encourage much greater
participation. Would it not be better, therefore, to consider
compulsion when we have had a chance as a Committee, as a House, as a
Government to look at the effects of those
measures?
Jim
Knight:
I can see the temptation to think that, but I
argue that if we give people the opt-out, we remove the momentum. The
duties in the Bill are balancing duties—duties on young people
balanced by duties on local authorities. The enforcement process is
costly to local authorities, it is something that they would have to
administer, and it is therefore more of a driver for them to put the
necessary support measures in place to avoid the need for enforcement.
I would argue that, by having some clear and definite measures in
place, with a definite end time of 2013 and then 2015, we will create
the momentum we need to get those measures in place early. We know that
the current cohort finishing primary school will be the first year to
whom the set of measures apply, and we need to ensure that their
educational journey from now on is configured around the duty to
participate applying to them in 2013, and not the possibility that it
might apply to them in 2013, which just changes the mindset
completely.
Mr.
Hayes:
I understand the Minister’s argument that
the measure will be a catalyst. It is, on the face of it, plausible;
but he must have considered with his colleagues other ways in which
participation could be encouraged. Indeed, there are all sorts of
carrots and sticks that could be used without using this enormous
cudgel of criminalisation. I just wonder what other ideas he tested
before concluding that he must use the nuclear
option.
Jim
Knight:
I do not see compulsion either as nuclear or
cudgel-like. I have described it as being slightly more forensic than
that, because it certainly has to be applied on an individualised
basis. We have considered everything, and everything that we think is
reasonable, we are deploying. We were already looking to deploy what
gave reasonable value for money in terms of effectiveness and
affordability in order to achieve 90 per cent. but, as I have
consistently argued, our analysis is that we need to go further through
this balancing set of duties in legislation to get to 100 per
cent.
Turning to No.
15, if we are going to place a duty on young people to participate, we
need to have the means to make that duty real for young people, and
that means being able to enforce it. The proposed amendment to clause
10 would remove the ability of the local authority to enforce the duty
to participate. Without enforcement, the galvanising effect of
compulsion is lost. The pressure on the system to provide what is
needed goes away.
I
see enforcement as a necessary deterrent that should be used only as a
last resort and only once all other avenues have been exhausted. I am
absolutely clear that where a young person needs extra support or faces
significant barriers to participation, such as homelessness or drug or
alcohol problems, the support services will focus on overcoming these
first. No young person will enter the enforcement system if there is a
reason why they are not participating and if they are taking the right
steps for them towards participation.
The role of the local authority
is crucial because it will be responsible for encouraging participation
and making sure the young people get the support they need. The
Connexions service will play a big part in that. I have already set out
some of its role. The local authority will be well placed to make sure
that young people enter the enforcement system only if it is justified
because, as I have just said, it will consider each case individually
and take full account of the young person’s personal
circumstances. The attendance panel will provide further checks and
balances on the process by reviewing the steps the local authority has
taken to make sure there has been sufficient opportunity and support
for the young person to engage voluntarily. The panel will confirm or
dismiss the attendance notice and be able to recommend that the local
authority take action to meet the needs of the young
person.
The duty to
participate and the ultimate possibility of enforcement are at the
heart of the Bill. Removing it would significantly reduce the impact of
what we are proposing and I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to
withdraw his amendment.
Mr.
Gibb:
There is an inherent contradiction at the heart of
the Government’s rhetoric. On the one hand the Minister and the
documentation say that the compulsion is a last resort and that the
real measures in this Bill are the increased opportunities for young
people to participate and the duties on local authority to promote
participation. The essence of the amendments, particularly amendment
No. 4, is to put into legislation the essence of the rhetoric that it
is a large resort—that the crucial part of the thrust behind the
policy is not the element of compulsion, but the aim of increasing
opportunities and encouragement to young people to participate in the
system.
We agree with
that. If that were the essence of the Bill, I suspect the Committee
stage would already be over. We are concerned, however, about the
compulsion element. The Minister cited the NUT as evidence of outside
bodies that are in favour of compulsion, but it says in its
briefing:
“The
NUT is concerned that the focus in the Bill on sanctions and
criminalisation for failing to participate may be
counter-productive.”
Similarly,
the TUC
says:
“The TUC
has some reservations in particular around a compulsory approach that
could result in young people being forced into
learning.”
Despite a
number of questions from the Minister to the TUC witnesses, they
refused to backtrack on that view. Despite persistent
questioning—until they got it right—they continued to get
it wrong, from the Minister’s perspective. I think the TUC and
the NUT are right.
The
Minister says that if we do not have the compulsion in the Bill that
would amount to doing nothing. He cannot say it is doing nothing and
then say that the other measures in the Bill to promote participation
and increase the number of opportunities are so important. As far as we
are concerned, those measures do not amount to nothing. I am promoting
the Minister in saying that these other measures in the Bill are likely
to be very effective. I wish he had the same confidence in his own
measures that we do.
The essence
of the issue is whether we can reach 100 per cent. The
Minister said, in giving evidence to the Committee, that,
“it is always difficult to get 100
per cent.”——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 207,
Q476.]
He is right. Reaching 100
per cent. is probably impossible. The question is how we get as near as
possible to that figure of 100 per cent. The type of young people we
are talking about will not respond to compulsion. They have had
compulsion thrust upon them for years, and they have resisted and
resented it for years. That was the view of the bodies that work with
such young people day in, day out—Rainer, the Prince’s
Trust and Fairbridge. They are all adamant.
Fairbridge deals with the type
of young person that the Prince’s Trust is unable to deal with:
very difficult, very hard-to-reach young people. Its witness was firmly
of the view that compulsion will not work for such young people, given
the problems they face. As local authorities start to monitor those
young people, we will end up with a very bureaucratic procedure
involving attendance panels, attendance notices and the range of
sanctions and penalties that arise from failing to comply with the
notices and orders. Those measures will be expensive and will simply
not work in getting those young people on to the training and education
ladder and helping them to make something of their lives. For this
reason, I wish to press the amendment to a vote, as it goes to the
essence of the difference in approach between Members on these Benches
and those on the Benches
opposite.
Question
put, That the amendment be
made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes
8.
Division
No.
2
]
AYESNOES
Question
accordingly
negatived.
Mr.
Hayes:
I beg to move amendment No. 3, in
clause 2, page 1, line 12, leave
out ‘must’ and insert ‘shall be entitled
to’.
No. 144, in
clause 2, page 1, line 12, leave
out from ‘applies’ to end of line 20 and
insert—
‘has the
right—
(a) to
participate in appropriate full time education or
training,
(b) to participate in
training in accordance with a contract of apprenticeship,
or
(c) whilst in full time
occupation, to participate in sufficient relevant training or education
in each relevant period.’.
No. 145, in
clause 10, page 5, line 35, leave
out ‘fulfil the duty imposed’ and insert ‘exercise
the right
conferred’.
No.
146, in
clause 12, page 6, line 22, leave
out ‘failing to fulfil the duty imposed’ and insert
‘not exercising the right
conferred’.
No.
147, in
clause 13, page 6, line 34, leave
out ‘failing to fulfil the duty imposed’ and insert
‘not exercising the right
conferred’.
No.
149, in
clause 39, page 20, line 23, leave
out ‘fulfil the duty imposed’ and insert
‘participate in required education
or training as
required’.
No.
150, in
clause 39, page 20, line 27, leave
out ‘fulfil that duty’ and insert ‘participate in
required education or
training’.
Mr.
Hayes:
It is a delight to be working again with such a
talented team, and none more talented than you, Mr. Bercow.
The amendments focus our attention once again on the central issue of
compulsion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton has argued, without proper consideration of that element
of the Bill, much of the rest becomes fruitless. That is not to say
that there are not good things in the Bill, or that we do not support
many of the measures which the Government suggest, and it certainly
does not mean that we do not share the aspirations that underpin much
of what the Government have said both in Parliament and outside.
However, those things might be better achieved without reference to
legislation. They can be achieved in all kinds of ways. No one in the
House, let alone in Committee, is more enthusiastic than I am about
rejuvenating the apprenticeships system, but I am not sure that the
Bill is the right means of doing so.
11
am
The
amendments deal with the issue of compulsion through a series of
apparently minor or semantic changes. Amendment No. 3 removes the word,
“must”, which signifies the determination of the Minister
and the Government to compel young people into education. However, as
Barnardo’s has said, if education at 16 to 18 is to succeed,
young people must choose to participate if they are to maintain their
motivation. I am interested in the Minister’s arguments, which
he makes with typical flair, that without compulsion, there will be no
incentive or driver—“catalyst” was the word he
used. However, I am not sure that the case has been made persuasively.
It certainly has not been proven, and it is not the view of many
organisations that work most closely with the disadvantaged young
people whose interests we are so passionate about. My hon. Friend the
Member for North-East Hertfordshire spoke about that in an earlier
sitting. In his experience of working with young people, unless they
thought they had made a choice to participate, the catalyst the
Minister described would not apply. It is the catalyst of their
commitment that counts, not the catalyst of the law. My hon. Friend
made that point with alarming eloquence, and I am surprised that the
Minister did not spot
it.
Mr.
Heald:
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks, but
Barnado’s, which did a survey of young people, was not the only
organisation to come to that conclusion. The British Youth Council
reached the same conclusion, so there is support for his argument from
the available evidence of what young people
think.
Mr.
Hayes:
I shall deal exhaustively, in the all too
few words that I shall use when speaking to this group of amendments,
with other organisations that have made the same point. However, we do
not need simply to rely on their expertise, as we know what they say is
true from our own real-life experience. Have we not grasped that from
work in our constituencies and our knowledge and understanding of young
people? Do we not know it from our personal experience? The things
which we choose to do are usually the things that we do with most
enthusiasm. There is a philosophical problem with the Minister’s
argument, which supposes that if someone wants to do something, they
have to be forced to do it. I am not sure that that obligation sits
comfortably with the desire to do
something.
Jim
Knight:
I appreciate that the school leaving age is a
different proposition, but there has been a cultural shift in
parents’ expectations as to how long their children will be in
education. Does the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that in the early
1970s the school leaving age was raised from 15 to 16, and that
subsequently it was raised from someone’s 16th birthday to the
end of the academic year? That changed parents’ expectations of
how long their children would carry on learning, and that cultural
shift could only be achieved by a measure of compulsion. That
compulsion was applied then, and it would similarly be applied with the
Bill?
Mr.
Hayes:
The Minister’s argument is not without
merit. There is an argument that says, and my hon. Friend the Member
for North-East Hertfordshire parodied it a little unkindly, that it is
not the attractiveness of the product or the ability of Government or
any of the agencies that are working in the education sector to inspire
young people—it is not about the thirst for learning that might
derive from those things—that is likely to be successful but the
obligation: the fear, or the threat of
force.
That would
certainly have some effect, and I think it would do what the Minister
says to some extent. However, I am not sure it will reach the people he
most wants to reach, because he said earlier—and this is the
flaw in his argument—that he believed 90 per cent. of young
people in the target set by the Government would participate without
compulsion, but that there was a stubborn 10 per cent. that the
Government would not be able to attract or inspire in the way that I
have described. I am not sure that compulsion will help us to engage
that stubborn 10 per cent., because we know from the figures—I
will not say “on truancy”, as the Minister would quickly
identify absence from school as a factor—that if we add
authorised and unauthorised absence in year 11, we are nudging up to 10
per cent. in schools. I do not believe that the figure
for ages 16 to 18, if the Bill comes into law, is likely to be less than
the existing figure in schools. In fact, I would assert that it is
likely to be more. When young people reach the age of 16 or 18, they
are more challenging and difficult: there are other draws on their
attention and energies that are altogether more seductive than the
Minister and his policies. I am not sure, if the Minister’s
argument is that compulsion will succeed in engaging the 10 per cent.
that other methods have not engaged, that he will be proved right. That
is why amendment No. 3 removes the word,
“must”.
Amendment
No. 144 similarly leaves out, “applies” and adds,
“has the right”. Although we are concerned about
compulsion, we are passionately in favour, as I have made
clear—and my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton, with greater knowledge and understanding has made it
even clearer—of encouraging as many young people as possible to
achieve their potential by staying on in education or training. The
explanatory notes to clause 2 are worth considering in detail, because
clause 2 creates the central duty, as the Minister said when dealing
with a previous group of amendments,
“to participate in education or
training”.
It details the
ways in which that duty might be fulfilled, both by young people
themselves and by the institutions entrusted with the mission of
bringing about that purpose. The eligible forms of education and
training, to which the amendments refer, are listed in the notes
as
“appropriate full-time
education or training...a contract of
apprenticeship”—
The
minister mentioned that a few moments ago—and
“part time education or
training towards an accredited qualification as part of full-time
occupation or alongside occupation of more than 20 hours a
week.”
The
purpose of our amendments—and I make no bones about it—is
to qualify that duty and pare down the Bill. We do not deny the fact
that all those things I have listed are desirable, but we doubt whether
the means to achieve them are right. The Minister, untypically—I
will not say, “disingenuously”, because I think he was
unwise, with an untypical lack of wisdom—suggested that was the
only means of achieving those ends. He said that “we must will
the means to bring about this end”, as if compulsion were the
only means or route to that end. When I intervened on him to ask what
assessment he had made of other means to those ends, he said that the
Government had looked at almost everything. He did not elaborate in the
detail that I think the Committee would have liked, which would have
enabled us to judge what measures he had considered, how he had tested
them, and what notional judgments he had made about their success.
Would they have reached 85 per cent. of people, or 70 per
cent. or 97 per
cent.?
We
were not given a clear indication as to when the Government came to the
conclusions about compulsion, having considered and exhausted other
options because, in the Government’s estimation and projections,
they were found to be inadequate. I would want to look at the measure
in considerably more detail, and test more rigorously some of the
alternatives before moving to a position where we criminalise young
people—that is what it is; there is no point in making any bones
about it or mincing our words—in the knowledge, as the Minister
has admitted, that 100 per cent., despite the
measures in the Bill, will not participate. It is not possible to
achieve 100 per cent. participation in anything that people are obliged
to do, and that is certainly true in education. Some people, as a
direct consequence of these measures, will gain a criminal record at a
very young age. That is not acceptable without a very convincing
argument that that is the only way
forward.
The
explanatory notes include details of the duties to which educational
institutions are subject. They have a duty to notify the appropriate
service provider if someone is not participating and they believe that
that person is not fulfilling the duty. The Bill define services
providers and puts into place all the mechanisms for enforcement. Our
amendment No. 149 suggests that we delete “fulfil the duty
imposed” from clause 39 and
insert,
“participate in
required education or training as required”.
Again, in the same spirit, our aim is to
encourage the end but to amend the means. In a similar fashion,
amendment No.150 would leave out, “fulfil that duty”, and
once again
insert,
“participate in
required education or training”.
We believe in exercising
rights rather than imposing a duty. I should qualify that. I am not
terribly enthusiastic about rights, particularly natural rights. It is
responsibilities about which I am most enthusiastic, for I am, as the
Committee knows, a Conservative. As I have argued before, if we limit
people’s liberty, we must have a balancing product—an
offer that is so attractive or compelling that that loss of liberty can
be justified. The nature of government—and there can be no
better example than this—is surely to remove liberty only where
there is a compelling, overwhelming case for so
doing
Nia
Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab): I am glad to hear the hon.
Gentleman mention responsibility. Does he not agree that we should ask
young people to take their responsibilities seriously, and that there
should be a duty on every young person to participate in some form of
activity between the ages of 16 and
18?
Mr.
Hayes:
That is an interesting question, because once or
twice in our considerations, the Minister of State has made the remark
that the only liberty that we are taking away is the right or
opportunity to do nothing. I am with Proust rather than the hon. Lady
on these matters. I do not know whether we are going to have much
opportunity to explore
Proust—
Mr.
Hayes:
Mr. Bercow, I look to you when I speak
for a certain sobriety to balance my levity. I hope I can rely on that,
as I do not want to be
impertinent.
Proust
advocated the notion of spending time doing precisely
that—nothing. Proust said that the good life—the
fulfilled life—depended on our spending considerable time doing
nothing. I rather suspect we should all be doing a lot more of that and
thus a lot less than we do now. We should—and I recommend it to
the hon. Member for Llanelli—spend more time contemplating,
meditating and considering—not the Bill, but all those gentle
and beautiful things to be found beyond this place. So I am with Proust
rather than the hon. Member for Llanelli, although I do not know
whether Proust enjoyed quite so much expertise in dealing with young
people as the hon.
Lady.
11.15
am
Mr.
Heald:
Does my hon. Friend agree that one thing is for
sure, Proust could read and
write—[
Interruption.
]—and add
up?
Mr.
Hayes:
Proust was a chronic hypochondriac, and spent many
years wrapped up in several overcoats and blankets. He went out in a
moment of folly, caught a cold and died, so whether he could read and
write or not, one would not want to rely too much on his advice.
However, I think that he was probably right about that willingness to
do nothing. An important part of freedom and liberty is the choice to
do nothing. One aspect of liberty is the business of saying,
“Well, I do not want to get involved. I do not want to
participate.” It may not be what we would advise young people to
do: we would tell them that that is the wrong judgement, and we would
encourage them or—and I used the word in a considered
way—inspire them to get involved. However, that is quite
different from saying that we will take away someone’s right to
meditate and contemplate—to emulate
Proust.
Before the
Committee tires of those wider, tangential remarks, I shall come
straight back, like an arrow, to the target—the amendments,
which very much reflect the views of a panoply of organisations that,
as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said,
have resisted the Government’s argument. They reject the central
tenet of the Bill because their experience leads them to believe that
it will not succeed. At an earlier stage in Committee proceedings, the
hon. Member for Yeovil and I had a brief exchange—I do not think
that you were there, Mr. Bercow; you were probably doing
nothing, and I congratulate you if that was the case—in which we
discussed the difference between philosophical objections to the Bill,
which can plausibly be made, and my objection, which is that it will
not work. It will not do what it is intended to do. It will not do what
the Minister hopes it will
do.
That is rather
reflected by the third party organisations to which my hon. Friend the
Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton referred—how much I
enjoy working with him in Committee and elsewhere—including
Rainer and the Prince’s Trust, which both gave evidence to the
Committee that raised doubts about the Minister’s argument.
Those doubts were not about the philosophy of the measure but about
whether the Bill will work: will it reach the most challenging young
people, for whom we have a responsibility to do more?
Barnardo’s has been
mentioned several times, but I make no apologies for mentioning it
again, because its words are highly relevant to this part of the Bill
and to our amendments. Its report, “School’s out, or is
it? Young people’s views on staying on in education or training
to 18” offers a very clear
message:
“Choice
is best...the young people consulted in Barnardo’s
alternative education and training services...felt that choosing
to participate was critical to their motivation to attend and
achieve.”
The important
words are, “choosing to participate”: those young people
made a commitment critical to their subsequent progress.
On the subject of enforcement in
relation to young people, the Association of School and College Leaders
said:
“Our
preferred approach to achieving full participation is by persuasion
rather than coercion. In particular we do not support the potential
application of criminal penalties for what is a civil
matter”.
The
Minister may want to leap to his feet and tell me whether the
Government considered only criminal sanctions, whether they looked at
the possibility of including civil sanctions in the
Bill?
Jim
Knight:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for inviting
me to leap to my feet, and may I take the opportunity to say that civil
sanctions are built into the measure, but criminal sanctions are at the
end of that civil road?
Mr.
Hayes:
That is true, but for the second time today, I am
tempted, against my instincts and against my highly co-operative and
generous style, to accuse the Minister of being rather less than
straightforward. While there are indeed civil penalties, there are not
civil penalties alone. He knew very well what I was inviting him to
clarify: whether he, his advisers or his colleagues in government had
considered leaving out the criminal sanctions at the heart of the Bill,
as well as the coercion identified by the Association of School and
College Leaders, and replacing them with solely civil measures. The
National Union of Students, an organisation with which most of us were
probably associated in some shape or form a few years ago—more
than a few in my
case—says:
“Compulsion
and especially criminalisation of those young people who opt out of
education will not be a fair or effective
solution.”
The
Young Women’s Christian Association
says:
“Education
at present does not work for many disadvantaged young women and without
significant changes to the system these young women will struggle and
the situation will get
worse.
Compulsory
participation in formal education does not necessarily lead to
learning. Non-formal education and youth work awards, accredited by QCA
or appropriate body, should be recognized as valid forms of training
for those most disengaged and
disadvantaged”
Time
and time again, we hear that the young people in greatest
need—those who face the most challenges and are most isolated
from the thirst for learning from which we have all benefited and that
we hope might be spread more widely—are the least likely to
benefit from a Bill that coerces them and, ultimately, if they do not
abide by their duties, criminalises them. That is the message that we
have heard loud and clear from any number of experts, and it is the
issue addressed by our amendments. Clause 2 is a vital part of the
Bill, and the amendments are the summation of the Opposition’s
view as to why it is not fit for purpose. To that end, I hope that the
Minister, even at this late stage, will listen to the
evidence—what is the purpose of evidence if we do not listen to
it and act upon it?—and take note of the arguments that have
been made in Committee, and which will me made time and time again. I
hope he will rise to say that the Government might just think again.
His share price would rocket if he did so, and not just with my hon.
Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, although that
would be a prize worth
having, but with everyone outside the House who knows that I have made a
reasonable case and that his argument is less than
persuasive.
Mr.
Laws:
We all enjoyed hearing about amendments No. 3,
amendments Nos. 144 to 147, and amendments Nos. 149 and 150 much more
than we expected. I did not initially intend to speak, but such is the
enthusiasm with which the hon. Member for South Holland and The
Deepings put his case that it would be discourteous not to enter the
debate, even for a short period of time.
This debate was similar to the
previous debate on amendments Nos. 4 and 15, which is why I do not
intend to speak for long. We have essentially heard the same tune from
the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, but with a
different conductor and, occasionally, a few different notes. However,
I am very pleased that we have managed to find some common ground
between a liberal Conservative—the hon. Member for Bognor Regis
and Littlehampton would, I think, be happy to fly under that
flag—and the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, who
is a self-styled illiberal Conservative.
Mr.
Laws:
I did not realise that there were any high Tories
left. Indeed, we have managed to find a coalition of views between a
Liberal, a liberal Conservative and a high Tory. I hold out some hopes
for the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, because he
sounded veritably Cameronian when he started to discuss the benefits of
meditation and inactivity. I expect at some future date to see
proposals along those lines on the front page of The Observer or
The Guardian, as informed by his thinking.
The hon.
Gentleman made a powerful case for a more voluntarist and permissive
approach to the Bill. I wait with interest to see whether he has
convinced the Minister, as his hon. Friends and I were not able to do
so. I was not convinced by the Minister’s explanations of what
he has described as a forensic rather than a nuclear or sledgehammer
approach. How one can have a forensic process of compulsion or a
forensic sledgehammer, I am not sure—or convinced that one can.
However, having felt compelled to lend my support to the amendments on
the basis of the robust case made for them, I look forward to seeing
whether the hon. Gentleman has convinced the
Minister.
Jim
Knight:
I, too, enjoyed the opening speech on this group
of amendments by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. I
fear that he may have missed his vocation—it was like listening
to an episode of “Just a Minute”, only with Nicholas
Parsons missing. Perhaps I am wrong, because it did not take just a
minute for the hon. Member to conclude his comments. We have discussed
at length in the debate on the previous group of amendments the
essential importance of compulsion in achieving the aims of the
Bill.
These
amendments seek to replace the central duty to participate with a
right, or entitlement, to participate, and they make corresponding
changes to the duties on local authorities. As the hon. Gentleman said,
that
strikes right at the heart of the Bill, and—I would
argue—would effectively neuter it. We had the benefit of hearing
from a wide range of witnesses during our oral evidence sessions. They
set out for the Committee their clearly and often passionately held
views about this issue on both sides of the debate. Plenty of them
discussed whether it was right to compel young people to participate in
education or training. I will not detain the Committee by citing every
supporter of the principle, but there were many of them and I will give
just a few examples. The Association of School and College Leaders
said:
“We
certainly agree with the idea that it should be compulsory for young
people to be engaged in educational training up to the age of 18 and we
welcome the fact that the Government intend that to be the
case.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills
Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 58,
Q146.]
The Campaign for Learning
said:
“If every
young person who is 11 now has an expectation that they are going to
stay in learning until they are 18, and their parents and employers
know that, we think that will be effective in making a difference to
the way people think.”——[Official Report,
Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 24 January 2008; c.
124, Q301.]
That goes to the
heart of my argument. Even the Prince’s Trust, which did not
hold a clear view either way,
said:
“If you
make it compulsory and you put in adequate resources...then it
would make a big difference because, yes, you would get that shift on
the ground.”
It went on
to say that
“in the
experience that the trust has had...where young people have been
sent to us compulsorily, we have not seen a difference in the
outcomes.”——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 21-26,
Q52-63.]
Nigel Haynes of
Fairbridge addressed the question of
choice:
“I think
choice has to have consequence, and as far as most of our young people
in the Green Paper surveys are concerned, they do believe that if there
is a degree of compulsion, for some that is going to be
appropriate.”
He went on
to say that
“we get round
it in quite a subtle way, in that there has to be some choice...a
young person coming to us through a YOT or from a YIP will have two or
three choices.”
Choice
and compulsion can therefore go together in Nigel Haynes’s
opinion. He
added:
“In the
overall sense of the Bill, there are options and pathways for them to
take that I think are opening up more than they were
previously.”
He went on
to say:
“From
looking at what there is on the book, I am not so sure that the range
of options needs to be increased.”——[Official
Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January
2008; c. 193-96, Q445-51.]
I am
sure that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings is aware
of what Nigel Haynes said on the subject.
11.30
am
I
believe that the measures in the Bill are right, necessary and
proportionate if we are to achieve our aim of full participation for
all young people up to the age of 18 in England. I have explained my
position at length in relation to the previous group of amendments. I
have set out why I agree with our witnesses that
compulsion will galvanise the system in a way that no other approach can
do. An entitlement or right to participate, as established by
amendments Nos. 3 and 144, would not in isolation achieve the goals we
have set ourselves. Giving young people a right to participate adds
nothing to the current position on post-16 education and training and,
in some ways, it weakens it. Young people are already entitled to
participate, and we are doing everything we can to encourage them to do
so.
As a result of
the reform programme that we have put in place, we expect many more
young people to choose to participate, but that is not enough to ensure
that they all do so. We believe that a voluntary approach could take us
to 90 per cent. participation at 17 by 2015—I am trying to be as
precise as I can to help the hon. Gentleman—but that means 10
per cent. not participating, left behind and increasingly
marginalised.
Mr.
Hayes:
The Minister has been precise. He suggested that a
non-compulsory approach might achieve a target of 90 per cent, as I
said.
I asked the
Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills a
question, but as I did not get a straight answer, what estimate has the
Minister for Schools and Learners made of the likely non-attendance
among that remaining 10 per cent., even given that they will be legally
obliged to participate? Is it going to be roughly the level of
non-attendance in year 11 at school?
Jim
Knight:
As we have discussed, the level of non-attendance
at school is difficult to quantify for those who are truanting, in
common parlance, so it is difficult to draw comparisons with what might
happen post-16, particularly as we will put in place a range of
measures to support young people as part of the legislation. I
therefore cannot give the hon. Gentleman a precise answer to that
question.
The figures we
have given in respect of enforcement are at the top end, because I
anticipate that the informal training that will be put in place to
re-engage young people, as well as support to help those with
particular difficulties—we have already discussed that and we
will go on to discuss it again in the next group of
amendments—will account for a range of circumstances, so there
will be people who will not be failing in their duty but will not be
fully participating, either, because they are on the road. It is
therefore difficult to define an answer to that
question.
Mr.
Hayes:
Can we at least get it on the record that no one
actually believes that even with these sanctions we are going to
achieve 100 per cent? It would be ludicrous for this Committee not to
hear from the Minister that even he, with all his confidence in this
measure, acknowledges that we are not going to achieve 100 per
cent.
“Do you
think you will reach 100 per cent.?”
I
replied:
“We do
not quite reach 100 per cent. for pre-16, because various circumstances
have to be taken into account...and there are a number of reasons
why people of compulsory school age
are absent from school. There are reasonable excuses for people not
participating. I do not know exactly how the statisticians measure
participation, but it is always difficult to get 100 per
cent.”
So I think I have
been relatively clear on that issue. Later, again in response to the
hon. Gentleman, I
said:
“I believe
that we can effectively get to 100 per
cent.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills
Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 207,
Q476-477.]
The word
“effectively” allows the wriggle room for some of the
difficulties around definition that may or may not emerge, depending on
how statisticians in the future choose to measure those people who are
not fully participating but who are en route to participating through
the re-engagement activities in the return to learning-type programmes
we will be developing. I hope that is
helpful.
Mr.
Hayes:
We will not get to 100 per cent. I read the
Official Report to which the Minister refers. I will ignore the
gobbledegook about statisticians—that is a red herring. We are
not going to get to 100 per cent., so we are really doing this, not for
the 90 per cent. and not for—let us be generous—the 3 or
4 per cent. who are not going to participate, but for about 6 per cent.
Is that what we are really
saying?
Jim
Knight:
No. I know that the hon. Gentleman is
probing to gain clarification—he is not deliberately being
obtuse. We are clear that we want to design a system for 100 per cent.,
so that there is no particular type or category of person who has a
different aspiration or expectation from the system about their
participation up until the age of 18. The system will explicitly be
designed for 100 per cent., be it 100 per cent. participation or 100
per cent. engagement.
As long as we have an optional
system of participation, the young people who are least likely to
choose to participate are those who are the most
disadvantaged—the very ones who most need to continue to learn.
It cannot be acceptable to deem any young person to be too hard to
engage. We must raise our expectations of those people and their
expectations of themselves. As drafted, clause 2 is key to bringing
about the essential culture change that we are looking for. It is about
changing the expectations, not only of young people—the
Opposition seem to think the duty to participate is laid on the young
people themselves in isolation—but of their parents, their
teachers and the others who advise them. That is crucial. The question
should no longer be, “Will you stay on?” but,
“What will you do?”
We will start with the young
people who are now in year 6 and starting secondary school in
September. It is worth adding that in school now you cannot distinguish
between who is there because they choose to be and who is there because
they have to be. Even if they are not choosing to go, by and large they
are still learning and gaining from that education. We want to extend
that.
Local
authorities’ duties are central to the proposals that we will be
debating and to the delivery of the reform programme. The existence of
a clear duty on young people will ensure not only that local
authorities act with urgency but also that they have the moral
authority to lead the rest of the system locally to
deliver what is needed for every young person. Removing the drive
provided by the duty on young people, as amendments Nos. 145 to 147
would do, would both reduce the impetus for local authorities to
respond with urgency and reduce their ability to cajole other services
to respond. We heard precisely that from John Freeman of the
Association of Directors of Children’s Services, in one of the
most memorable quotes from our evidence sessions. He
said
“as a director of
children’s services, I have a range of powers that I never use.
However, if I did not have them, I would have different conversations
with a range of people...without them, my leverage on the activity
would be much reduced.”—[Official Report, Education
and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 72,
Q174.]
Mr.
Laws:
Does the Minister agree that those bodies do not
seem to be using those powers very effectively in relation to those
children in year 10 and 11 who are not complying at all with the
attendance
obligation?
Jim
Knight:
Certainly, I agree that the performance of local
authorities in using those powers is not consistent. It is variable,
and I would like to see some use the powers more readily than they do.
However, I have no doubt that because directors of children’s
services have those powers, they are able to have conversations where
everyone who is taking part in that dialogue knows at the back of their
mind that there are enforcement powers that can be used, but that it is
desirable to move on because of the process involved. I hope that the
powers that we are putting into legislation through the Bill will have
a similar
effect.
Mr.
Hayes:
The efficacy of the powers, if they are not used
but they have an effect, is as a kind of threat. When challenged by the
hon. Member for Yeovil about the variability of the application of the
powers, the Minister said that he agreed that there was inconsistency.
There is no inconsistency in their having the powers, so why is there
inconsistency in the effect that those powers have when they are not
used? It is an extraordinarily illogical argument to say that they all
have the powers, and in some cases the powers frighten people, and in
other cases the powers do not.
Jim
Knight:
I think it is fairly obvious that if people do not
believe that a local authority is going to use the powers, the powers
do not have much effect; but if they see that the powers can be and are
used, that informs the conversation.
I do not want to get into a
lengthy debate about enforcement today; there will be plenty of time
for that later on. However, local authorities’ duties in
relation to enforcement will only have the impact that they must have
if they relate back to the central duty set out in clause 10.
To avoid being accused of
disingenuousness by the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings,
I would add, in respect of the exploration of whether or not it should
remain a civil matter and be enforced by the courts, we discounted that
option for a number of reasons. Unpaid civil penalties are registered
as a debt with the county court for enforcement. A warrant is
authorised, which a bailiff attempts to execute, but bailiffs cannot
act in relation to individuals under 18,
because young people are classed as vulnerable, so the bailiff would
have to withdraw. The cost of the original debt would increase as a
result of bailiff fees being added. That is not a position that we want
to see young people in. As a result of the spiralling fine, the young
person could be taken to county court. County courts and their
sentencing are not designed to deal with cases against young people,
and it is unlikely that any suitable action could be taken.
Throughout that process, of
course, the costs would keep mounting. It is therefore very unlikely
that the debt could be enforced at the end of the process. Either the
costs would then be left with the local authority and the council tax
payer, or the authority would seek to recover the whole amount from the
child, none of which would be means-tested. In the youth court,
however, the proceedings are set up expressly to deal with young
people: the amount of the fine is means-tested, has a maximum limit and
does not increase over time. I hope that that is a logical and
reasonable explanation of why we do not pursue the civil
penalties.
Barnardo’s made two
arguments relating specifically to the matters that the Minister has
just raised. To paraphrase, it does not want a young person who has
failed to participate to be left with a criminal record, which could
jeopardise their future employment. Barnardo’s believes that the
sanctions—the record—should be spent after a certain
period of time. It also argues that there should never be a custodial
sentence for failure to pay a fine or for non-attendance. Has the
Minister considered those points, and does he agree with
Barnardo’s?
Jim
Knight:
I am looking at the evidence that I gave the
Committee, but I believe that I set out the legal position in respect
of a criminal record then. That was that these offences would not
remain on the criminal record for longer than, as I recall, two and a
half years. Also, they would not be a recordable offence: the offence
created in clause 45 of failing to comply with an attendance notice is
not punishable by imprisonment, so it is not a recordable offence, it
will not be placed on the police national computer and it will not be
disclosable in a Criminal Records Bureau check. If a young person
chooses to go through the whole enforcement process, all the way
through the youth court and all the way through to developing a
criminal record, the effect would be seen for, at worst, two and a half
years after that conviction. I think that that is a reasonable and
balanced approach, and largely deals with the concerns that
Barnardo’s has raised, although obviously I cannot speak for
that organisation.
I
ask the Committee to resist amendments Nos. 149 and 150. The duty to
participate and the message it sends to all those involved are at the
heart of this Bill. Its removal would render the legislation a little
more than a restatement of the current position, which we all agree is
not one that we wish to see continuing. I therefore ask the loquacious
and articulate hon. Gentleman to withdraw his
amendments.
11.45
am
Mr.
Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): Thank you very much,
Mr. Bercow, for calling me to speak on this Bill. It is my
debut appearance in Committee and I have discovered my
tongue.
As I said to
the Minister on Second Reading, I sincerely want this Bill to succeed,
I really do. It is just not acceptable in a civilised society for any
child to be left behind. It is not in their long-term emotional,
spiritual or social interest, nor is it in the long-term interest of
society. I genuinely believe that the Bill will get participation rates
up from 90 per cent. to 96 or 97 per cent. Then, the
compulsion will come into force and another 2 per cent. will be added
to that.
That will
still leave 1 per cent. of the most excluded, and although 1 per cent.
sounds like an extremely small number, in total it is still many
thousands, many tens of thousands. I am still not sure how, despite the
powers of compulsion, we are going to get this 1 per cent. into
training and education. We all have them in our constituencies: they
are very hard to reach, they shy away from authority and even go so far
as to confront authority on almost every occasion. There will be powers
to levy fines on these youngsters, but I do not imagine they will pay
the fines. They will then reappear in court and the fine will be
increased, or another fine will be placed upon them. Again, I do not
imagine for a second that they will have the desire or the means to pay
that fine. Then, we get to the question of what we do with them after
that.
This is where I
am concerned, because the natural extension of the legal system for
someone who refuses to participate or abide by rulings imposed on them
is some form of custodial sentence. Perhaps that is where we need to go
if the measure is to have any teeth at all. If youngsters know that
they can get away with being fined time and time again and there will
be no long-term sanction, perhaps they will feel they can continue as
they want to. I am not suggesting that it would be desirable to lock up
recidivist offenders who refuse to pay the fine, but I am struggling to
understand how we are going to deal with that small minority. What sort
of resources will be at the disposal of local authorities and the
Government to sit them down and make them see sense—to re-engage
them in the
mainstream?
Mr.
Heald:
I was struck by the Minister’s point about
Barnardo’s. Some organisations have been prayed in aid as
supporting compulsion, but when one looks at what they are actually
saying, I question that. I wonder if what has happened is that the
Minister has spoken to various charities and organisations and said, as
he said to us, “If you want to get the money out of the Treasury
for education between 16 and 18, go along with this and you can be
pretty sure there will be no real compulsion here.” In other
words, there is something going on behind the scenes which is not
entirely in accordance with what is being said clearly on the
record.
To give an
example, having done a survey, Barnardo’s reports:
“’Choice is
best’ was the clear message from the young
people.”
It goes on to say that what is important is
adequate support. Barnardo’s says that the penalties should be
really quite small,
“reflecting the level of financial
support available to the poorest young people.”
It says that advocacy must be available,
that there must be no criminal record and that never, in any
circumstances, should any sort of custodial sentence be imposed. Is not
Barnardo’s really saying: yes, let us have education to 18 by
all means; let us have it funded by the Treasury; but let us not
criminalise these young
people?
I felt that was
the message from a number of the people who have been prayed in aid.
The Association of School and College Leaders was very anxious to say
that keeping the last 10 per cent. of recalcitrant young people in
education and training will not come cheap, which seemed to me to tie
in with that message. The comments made by Fairbridge fit in with that
analysis. The Association of Directors of Children’s Services
goes through the various civil elements of the enforcement programme,
explaining them and talking about the need for lots of support, but
when it comes to the criminal elements, it comments:
“local authorities will need
carefully to assess, on an individual basis the action that is most
likely to secure the desired
outcome.”
The ADSS is not
exactly saying, “Let’s move to prosecution”. Will
the Minister comment on whether those organisations genuinely want very
vulnerable young people to be
criminalised?
Jim
Knight:
I say to the hon. Member for North-East
Hertfordshire that those organisations understand the momentum that
having criminalisation at the end of the road gives the system, but
they, like all of us, want to minimise the number of young people who
are criminalised. In the same way, the hon. Member for Broxbourne, when
intelligently discussing whether imprisonment should be a
sanction—I would argue that it should not be and that that would
be a step too far—said that he has no desire to see young people
imprisoned for failing to participate in education or training. His
question was about whether we need that sanction on the statute book to
prevent people from not taking this seriously
enough.
Mr.
Walker:
The Minister is correct: the last thing I want to
see is youngsters imprisoned. What I really want is recognition of the
fact that helping that hard core of 1 per cent. will be immensely
challenging. We need a detailed action plan or business plan to make
sure that the infrastructure is in place to keep them out of prison and
get them back into training and employment.
Jim
Knight:
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is looking
forward to the stand part debate on clause 4, when I will set out those
plans. We will need to do much more between now and when the duties
come
into effect in 2013 and 2015 to get all the support measures in place. I
do not intend to speak at any great length for a second time on this
set of clauses, but I hope that that is helpful to the
Committee.
Mr.
Hayes:
I, too, have no intention of speaking at any great
length. However, as I listen to the Minister respond to the arguments
that have been made on the amendments, I am forced to conclude, with
considerable disappointment, that he has not, in my judgment and in
preparation for this work, even glanced at “Remembrance of
Things Past”. I do not think that even a passing familiarity
with Proust has graced the Minister’s
research—
The
Chairman:
Order. I simply say to the hon. Member for South
Holland and The Deepings that his invocation of Proust and his
impersonation of Demosthenes may well have been equally entertaining
and—possibly—illuminating to Members of the Committee,
but it is fair for the Chairman to point out that Demosthenes was not
subject to the constraints of a programme motion, whereas Members of
the Committee are. I invite the hon. Gentleman to bear that point in
mind as he summarises his argument.
Mr.
Hayes:
I am delighted, Mr. Bercow, that you
have drawn me back to the straight and narrow when Members of the
Committee have tempted me to digress from our duty.
The Minister recognised in his
remarks that the amendments lie not only at the heart of the Bill, but
at the heart of the difference between the sides of this
Committee—between Opposition parties and the Government. The
arguments could be amplified at length, but I will simply say that I
have yet to hear from the Minister a persuasive case for why the ends
that we share would not be better achieved by more agreeable means and
without some of the unacceptable consequences of his option. To that
end, I am obliged, more in sorrow than in anger, to ask the Committee
to divide on the
amendment.
Question
put, That the amendment be
made:—
The
Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes
8.
Division
No.
3
]
AYESNOES
Question
accordingly
negatived.
Mr.
Laws:
I beg to move amendment No. 71, in
clause 2, page 1, line 17, leave
out from beginning to end of line 8 on page 2 and
insert—
‘(c) be in full-time
occupation (see section 5).’.
Amendment No. 71 moves us on to
the beginning of what I think will be one of most important debates on
the Bill. So far in Committee we have touched on the principle of
compulsion and criminalisation and spent some time debating, on
amendment No 70, exceptions and vulnerable individuals who might find
it difficult to engage in education and training. Amendment No. 71
invites us to consider what for us is the third salient problem with
the Bill. The amendment would allow 16 and 17-year-olds in full-time
employment not to have to be in education and
training.
We advocate
the amendment essentially for two principal reasons. The first relates
to evidence that we heard during the evidence sessions. We received
many representations about the potential employment consequences of
this part of the Bill and the danger that it could increase
unemployment rates among 16 or 17-year-olds as a consequence of
employers deciding not to take on young people who would then have an
education and training
obligation.
The second
concern that the amendment seeks to address, which is linked to the
first, relates to the representations made to us by some of the same
people concerned about whether obliging people in full-time employment
to take on particular qualifications at a particular time was going to
be useful to them, or whether it could saddle them with qualifications
that are either useless or of very low quality. It might also get in
the way of people taking up their entitlement to some of those
qualifications at a later date, which might result in a more useful
qualification that could be quite beneficial to their future prospects
both within and outside of the labour
market.
Later clauses
deal with the same issues as those before us now, but I shall regard
this argument as having been made. With your patience, Mr.
Bercow, I shall therefore spend a little time setting out the
evidence.. I promise not to return to it in every succeeding clause. It
is worth examining some of the evidence that we received on the
employment effects of the Bill.
12
noon
One of the
most powerful and impressive witnesses we heard, and with whom I
thought even the Minister dealt with kid gloves, knowing that she is a
national expert, was Alison Wolf. She has recently published a paper
called “Diminished Returns: How Raising the Leaving Age to 18
Will Harm Young People and the Economy”. She gave evidence to
the Committee on 24 January, which is worth some reflection. She
said:
“the negative impact
that the Bill will have, by effectively destroying the labour market
for 16 and 17-year-olds, is enormously underestimated. That might be
justified if one were confident that they were going to be doing
something that was extremely valuable. Since one is not, and since we
know that on-the-job experience is demonstrably extremely valuable to
people, I think we have to take the impact on the job market extremely
seriously. I think the effect will be very serious and almost totally
negative.”——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 24 January 2008; c. 107,
Q272.]
Mr.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool, South) (Lab): I bow to no one
in my admiration of the work that Alison Wolf has done over a long
period. However,
does the hon. Gentleman agree that when she was questioned on the
evidence base of her assertions, , not least by myself, it became clear
that it was very thin. It seemed to be strongly focused on her
experiences of the economy, job organisation and age ranges in
France.
Mr.
Laws:
The hon. Gentleman makes the important point that
such matters are surrounded by a large element of uncertainty. Alison
Wolf was honest and straightforward with the Committee, including in
response to his questions, by acknowledging that uncertainty about her
calculations. Had she been a politician, she probably would not have
given such a candid response. I remember the hon. Gentleman indicating
assertions that had been made about the impact that the minimum wage
would have, which have not all come to pass.
I remind the hon. Gentleman not
only that we received a lot of evidence on the subject, to which I
shall come in a moment, but that in the Bill’s impact assessment
the Government assume that there will be a significant impact on small
employers. It estimates that half the young people who would have been
employed by smaller employers will lose their employment opportunities
as a consequence of the Bill. That is by the Government’s own
estimation, which I assume is not pitched pessimistically.
Of course, we should subject the
claims that have been made to scrutiny, but we should take seriously
the risk that some young people might lose opportunities that can be
extremely valuable, particularly for those who have disengaged with the
formal education process and could learn a wide variety of valuable
disciplines by being in employment. We must also take seriously the
risk that we will place upon such young people a duty to be in a form
of education, training or qualification that gives them skills that do
not have a high market value. That is our
concern.
Alison Wolf
continued in her evidence to talk about some of the people who could be
the losers from the proposals. She
said:
“The
people who are likely to be the largest losers from this are the
notional equivalent of today’s young people—many of whom
have left school with perfectly good GCSEs...who have made a
decision at 16 to leave school, who are in jobs, who are getting a
great deal of valuable on-the-job training often and who may be getting
formal training as far as the labour force survey data is concerned,
but who are not in jobs where their small and medium-sized employers
can, with any ease, move to releasing them for a day, or entering into
an extremely complex apprenticeship contract and so
on.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills
Public Bill Committee, 24 January 2008; c. 108,
Q273.]
She is concerned that they
are the individuals who might lose job opportunities. She went on to
set out her concerns about the alternative approach that I put to her
to keep people in the labour market: to widen the accreditation for
young people who are in employment but not getting education and
training. She said:
“the
local training provider can come in and tick them off for an
NVQ—well, yes, I guess you can do that. I do not know why you
would want to. In fact, I can think of one reason why you would not
want to. The reason why you might not feel that it is a particularly
important use of Government money is that many of those young people
will already have level 2 GCSEs.”
She
went on to explain that if young people at that age are obliged to take
up particular qualifications, they may expend their level 2
entitlement, even though they might more usefully access that
entitlement later. She
said:
“If they
then want to go to the local college or whatever and take another
qualification, they will be told that they have already had their full
level 2s”—[
Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 24 January 2008; c. 109,
Q275.]
That whole case is set
out in great detail in her paper.
We also heard a lot of evidence
on this from business organisations. We had written and, I think, oral
evidence from the CBI. Its written evidence, submitted on 22
January—in the context of support for some of the proposals in
the Bill, which I do
acknowledge—stated:
“The
CBI fears that firms currently offering valuable work opportunities
will be discouraged from providing these in the future by the
requirements on employers to police participation and the financial
penalties for employers who inadvertently fall foul of the
law.”
It went on to
say:
“The
Government must be mindful of the potential unintended consequences
that could result from its proposals if young people who would have
chosen employment opt for unemployment rather than attending training
at school or
college.”
We
heard similar concerns from other bodies. On 29 January, we took
evidence from Mr. Harris, Head of Education and Skills
Policy for the Institute of Directors, and from Mr. Ehmann,
Head of Regulation and Enterprise Policy at the Institute of Directors,
and both highlighted the fact that these parts of the Bill could have
an adverse impact on employment. Mr. Harris pointed out
that
“the Department,
which estimated something like 5,500 16 to 17-year-olds will be
displaced because of the lack of small employers’ ability to
respond flexibly to the
requirements
Mr.
Ehmann said:
“If you look at IOD
members, 75 per cent. of those with less with 50 employees have no
human resources support whatsoever. There is a very real possibility
that small businesses may choose to employ older members of the work
force.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills
Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 167,
Q372.]
This is not only
a concern of academics, and it is not only business organisations that
are drawing attention to it. I have found it to be a real concern
across the country amongst those who represent the interests of young
people or those who work with very challenging young people who might
have disconnected from formal education long before 16 but who the
education system is increasingly looking to put in part-time work
placement prior to the age of 16. From my part of the country, Peter
Renshaw, the chief executive of Connexions in Somerset, wrote to me
saying:
“Whilst it will be
important to ensure high quality provision in education or training the
burden of increased administration and bureaucracy must be avoided or
employers will not take
part.”
He
cites the recent Ernst and Young survey that indicated that, although
migrant workers are beneficial to the British economy as a whole, an
estimated 100,000 or more young people appear to have been displaced
from work opportunities as a consequence of the recent large influx of
migrant workers. He goes on:
“The implementation of
Raising the Participation Age will rely on the involvement of
employers, there is therefore a danger
they may ‘vote with their feet’ by seeking labour from
abroad thereby reducing training costs and denying young people
opportunities.”
Angela
Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): I have been listening to the
hon. Gentleman carefully, but it is difficult to envisage any new,
young and inexperienced employee going into the workplace and not
learning something. The employer would of necessity have to give them
some instruction or training so that they could carry out the
duties—whatever they happened to be. Does the hon. Gentleman
think that small employers, whose employee numbers are below a certain
threshold, ought to be exempt from the
provision?
Mr.
Laws:
The hon. Lady makes an important point, and that is
one possible course of action. We prefer, in the amendment, however, a
provision regarding full-time employment, which might have the effect
that she envisages, because we acknowledge that many larger employers
already provide a good deal of formal education and training, and one
would not expect them to withdraw it as a consequence of any such
amendment. I should prefer to remove the compulsion to provide
additional education and training, acknowledging, as the hon. Lady
said, that young people who engage in employment often learn skills and
pick up, on the job, information that can be far more valuable than
many qualifications—particularly vocational—that
successive Governments have created and which, Alison Wolf, in another
book published by some time ago, demonstrated are not always good value
for a considerable period.
We have evidence from
economists, business groups, groups that represent young
people’s concerns and the British Youth Council. James Cathcart,
chief executive of the British Youth Council, said that the provisions
requiring 16 and 17-year-olds in employment to be in education and
training “could discriminate against them.” He
continued:
“I
think it is an area where we can forecast or project that it could. If
employers, for example, feel obliged to recruit a particular age group,
there is a possibility that they will then just seek to recruit people
who are over 18 or 19, rather than take the risk of having unwilling or
unable young people who would have to be released—whether it is
one day a week—to take part in that
training.”——[Official Report, Education and
Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 192,
Q443.]
We have heard concerns
from one set of individuals who represent the interests of young
people. It has been suggested that there may be a substitution for
migrant workers, and we have heard other groups who are concerned that
18-year-olds may end up substituting.
Mr.
Marsden:
I am sorry to intervene on the hon. Gentleman
again, because I do not wish to interrupt the flow of his argument
unduly, but does he agree that one weakness with the British Youth
Council’s argument, with other evidence and with the thrust of
what he says this morning, is that it takes no account of the potential
flexibility in training and education for the cohort of 16 to
18-year-olds who will come under the Bill? There was no reference in
the British Youth Council’s evidence, nor indeed in what the
hon. Gentleman has just said, to the possibility of training in-house,
after work or at weekends, which small and
medium-sized businesses can be quite good at, if encouraged and
supported.
Mr.
Laws:
We are in favour of flexibility, but compulsion
takes away many flexibilities that young people need to act in their
own interest. For example, a young person who left school at 16, went
into employment, managed to re-engage their interest, learned useful
work skills and became more skilled, might want to re-engage with the
education system not when the Minister compels them at 16 or 17, but
perhaps at 18, 19 or 20. In one witness session, I asked a head teacher
from my constituency about his views on the Bill. He said that he knew
many young people who were completely disengaged from the education
system at 15 or 16 and who had all sorts of different
problems—medical and otherwise. They often rediscovered an
interest in and conviction about the value of education at a later
stage in their life, which is when we want people to be able to take up
these opportunities.
12.15
pm
We want to amend
the Bill to give those young people an entitlement to take up those
opportunities later on. A powerful criticism of the system, which we
have had for too long, is that the young people who most need
state-funded educational support are those who end up with the lowest
value of support as a consequence of leaving the education system at
the age of 16. Many youngsters from more affluent backgrounds have gone
on to have free or subsidised education until the age of 21 or beyond.
If part of the aspiration of the Bill is to ensure that every young
person has an entitlement that is equal, which they can take when they
are ready, we welcome
that.
We are concerned
about the hon. Gentleman’s comments about flexibility, but we
will deal with that under a separate clause so I will not prolong the
point. We would also be concerned if there were to be an obligation on
some young people to take education and training outside their hours of
work. If they are working for a long time anyway, one has to ask
whether it is fair to ask them to do that training outside of a
full-time employment commitment.
There are reasons why we should
be concerned about the employment consequences of the Bill, and we know
that the Government are also concerned about that because they have
been candid on pages 26 and 27 of the impact assessment. They have
acknowledged that it is likely that the process will cause some
unemployment among 16 or 17-year-olds. The Government point out in a
rather yes ministerish manner that employers will have time to adapt to
their employment patterns so that they employ 16 to 17-year-olds on an
appropriate basis in the first place, which is shorthand for saying
that they will not actually be employing those 16 or 17-year-olds.
Consequently, the Government estimate that 5,500 young people will not
be able to take up employment opportunities between the ages of
16 and 17.
One of the important services
done by Alison Wolf in her paper is to highlight the assumptions on
which the figures in the impact assessment are based. As I understand
it, the figures are quite optimistic from the Government’s
perspective, even though they assume that, for small businesses, half
of all the youngsters
between the ages of 16 and 17 who would have had employment
opportunities will not have those opportunities in the future. I invite
the Minister to comment on the points made in Alison Wolf’s
paper, in which she indicates what the upside risks are in relation to
the 5,500 figure. The first upside risk is that the Government simply
will not succeed in securing their objective of 90 per cent.
participation in education and training by 2013. Potentially, the stock
of young people who could end up suffering as a consequence of the
proposals would be much larger. That would have a significant impact on
the estimates. It would be helpful if the Minister and his officials
could say what the estimate of employment losses is if the
participation rate is stuck at around 80 per cent., at which it has
been for some time.
The second point that Alison
Wolf made in her evidence and in her paper is that the Government
appear to be using labour force survey data that assumes that a larger
number of people are already in some form of education and training
that would meet the requirements of the Bill than is actually the case.
In her evidence to the Committee and in her paper “Diminished
Returns”, she raised a concern about whether the assumptions are
right about how many people in employment are in the type of education
and training that would be credited under the Bill. We would be
grateful if the Minister could say whether he thinks there may
be an underestimate in relation to that.
The impact assessment also
assumes that there will be no impact on the employment of 16 and
17-year-olds in larger companies. At the moment, the Bill assumes that
there will be an impact on only small firms and that those in larger
firms will not be affected. I wonder whether that is a realistic
assumption. It seems to me that if 50 per cent. of those in smaller
firms could lose their employment opportunities, there is a significant
risk of some impact on medium and larger
employers.
The impact
assessment also touches on the 5,000 or so self-employed 16 and
17-year-olds. Paragraph 5.29, on page 27 of the assessment, argues in
slightly obscuring language that those individuals might find that they
are more likely to have to look outside their organisation to find the
necessary accredited courses. I would have thought that many of them
would not be in anything looking like an organisation and that they
might find it difficult to access accredited courses. Has the Minister
made any assumptions about the impact of the proposals on self-employed
16 and 17-year-olds?
All those criticisms
lead on to the section in Alison Wolf’s paper in which she
questions the economic assumptions and conclusions in the impact
assessment. On page 24 of her paper she argues that if those
assumptions turn out to be incorrect, the impact would be dramatic both
on employment and through the consequential knock-on effect on
colleges’ education and training budget. She states that if the
figures are wrong in the way that she believes, the direct cost to the
Government would rise to approximately £1.5 billion, rather than
the £774 million under the 2016-17 prices used in the Bill. The
production losses would then be between £169 million and
£321 million—in other words, considerably higher than in
the Bill—and the benefits would reduce. Her conclusion is that
the
amended costings suggest that there might be a net loss ranging from
£211 million to £1.8 billion per cohort. The
Government’s very optimistic assumptions about the potential
benefits of the Bill would be turned on their head by that change in
assumption, and by others that Alison Wolf mentions, some of which, in
fairness, touch upon education and training issues, and not purely on
the employment
issues.
Alison Wolf
then underlines the huge value of employment to many of those young
people, which is a point that has been raised by a number of hon.
Members in this sitting already. She
states:
“The
current obsession with formal training reflects successive
governments’ endless pursuit of qualifications,
and...reflects a profound misunderstanding of the labour
market”.
She
continues:
“Employment
has a major, positive effect on future employment prospects. Indeed, it
is a far more effective way of breaking the cycle of unemployment and
deprivation than any form of formal
training.”
She
goes on to talk about the Government’s new deal programme for
unemployed youngsters between the ages of 18 and 24 and argues that an
analysis of the programme confirms the primacy of getting many young
people into employment even without education and training. She states
that the
programme
“involves an
intensive period of assisted job search, followed by several
options”,
which include
being in full-time education and training, being on an environmental
task force and being in employment. She
continues:
“Of
these four options, only subsidised employment has offered effective
help in moving young people into permanent employment. The fulltime
education and training option has had no positive impact on the
employment prospects of young
people”.
Nia
Griffith:
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the world of
work is changing rapidly and that the number of jobs available to
people with no skills will diminish considerably in the next 10 to 20
years? We can all understand that once a young person is in a job, it
is a way of growing up and has a profound impact on them, but does he
accept that even in that job, there is a need for continued training if
that person is to participate in the world as it changes in the
next few
years?
Mr.
Laws:
The hon. Lady makes an important point, to which I
have two responses. First, for some youngsters, re-engagement often
requires them to be in employment rather than in education and
training. We should not underestimate how many things of great value
young people can learn and pick up in employment without having to be
in something that is accredited.
Secondly, I do not know whether
the hon. Lady has had a chance to look at Alison Wolf’s report,
in which she seeks to demolish the argument that the hon. Lady used at
the beginning of her question—the belief that there will be no
jobs for people without qualifications in future. Wolf says that the
figures in the Leitch report, from which I think the hon. Lady is
implicitly or explicitly quoting, are an estimate, not of the number of
jobs that do not require skills, but of the number of people in the
work force at that time who do not have those skills. In other words,
it is tautology,
rather than an indication that there will not be any low-skilled jobs
available. It simply indicates that, at that stage, most people in
those types of jobs will have certification of one form or
another.
My modest
amendment opens up a debate to which, I suspect, we will return many
times in Committee. I shall therefore set aside issues of enforcement
until then. This is our third big concern about the Bill after
compulsion and criminalisation, and the need to ensure a flexible
system for young people with very high needs. Employment is central to
the adverse impacts that the Bill could have. We hope that the
Government will acknowledge that there are significant risks in this
area, and seek to amend the Bill to reduce the risks of disadvantage to
precisely the group of young people whom they seek to
help.
Mr.
Hayes:
The hon. Member for Yeovil spoke at length and in
some detail to make the case for his amendment. He argued that it
pivots on two essential points: first, the effect on employers and the
likelihood of their employing young people, and, secondly, the
primacy—he was paraphrasing Alison Wolf—of getting young
people into jobs. There might be a third and perhaps a fourth point,
but let me explore his arguments.
The hon. Gentleman is right
about the effect on employers, because that is what they tell us. Some
people—I count myself among them—have experience of
employing young people, and have bought and sold things for a living.
That is a great virtue in this place, because it gives us real-life
experience of these things. From my experience and the evidence cited
by the hon. Gentleman, small employers and, perhaps, medium-sized
companies, would be particularly deterred from employing young people.
That was the case made by Alison Wolf, although I agree with the hon.
Member for Blackpool, South that she did not provide powerful evidence
to support her assertion when questioned. That is a fair criticism,
but, none the less, having spoken to the Federation of Small
Businesses, which does good work in Lincolnshire and elsewhere, as well
as to other employers in my constituency, I must say that Wolf’s
view is supported by many employers. They will simply look elsewhere
for workers, as the Government would acknowledge.
As the hon. Member for Yeovil
made clear, the Government say in their impact
assessment:
“We
assume that the reaction of employers...will be split between
either choosing to employ older workers and avoiding the duty, or
releasing their employees for education and
training.”
12.30
pm
The Government
clearly recognise that there will be a division among employees, but I
hope that the Minister will explain precisely how they see that split
developing. Are they worried that half of small employers will not
engage young people? Is it 10 per cent. or is it the majority? It is
not clear.
Jim
Knight:
I shall attempt to do so. The Committee should
read paragraphs 5.24 and 5.25 together, as they show that the
assessment of about half of 16- to 17-year-olds being affected refers
to the 27 per cent. of the full-time 16 to17-year-old cohort who are in
jobs without training, earn below the 18-year-old national minimum wage
and are employed in small firms. That total is 3,360 young people.
Therefore, the total of those we assumed would be affected by small
businesses not wanting to employ them is 1,680. I hope that that is
sufficiently precise.
Mr.
Hayes:
It is helpful. Indeed, one could reach that
conclusion from reading those two paragraphs. However, one could not
conclude, except by speculation, which is all the Minister has offered
us, what impact he expects the Bill to have on those employers. In
other words, how many of them will henceforth choose to have little or
nothing to do with young people? In making his point about the effect,
he assumes a constant level of employment, but the labour market
changes over time, as we know. We would expect the reaction of
different employers to be different, as the subsequent paragraph
suggests. I do not know whether Alison Wolf is right that the proposal
will have a devastating effect as she argued in her paper and in
evidence, but I will be interested to know whether the Minister expects
all or any small businesses to continue to employ young people. My
guess is that it will be a mixed picture, but I should like more
detail.
There is no
detail about medium-sized companies and still less about very large
companies, which will be similarly affected and, as the hon. Member for
Yeovil said, some of them will respond in a similar way. The likely
impact on employment patterns, which formed a great part of Alison
Wolf’s evidence, is central to the amendment tabled by the hon.
Gentleman. The Minister will probably argue that the numbers are
sufficiently small not to be likely to have a profound effect on the
economy, which brings me to the second argument advanced by the hon.
Member for Yeovil which he described, paraphrasing Alison Wolf, as the
primacy of employment in young people’s interests.
I shall add a suffix to his
argument, which I hope complements the points he made: for some of the
most challenging and challenged young people, that primacy assumes even
greater significance. For disabled young people who are supported in
employment, for young people from homes where employment is not the
norm, and where there is no expectation of regular employment, and for
those who have had a very difficult time at school, getting a job
assumes a disproportionate significance. The hon. Gentleman is right
that for those young people, that might be more important than getting
into a job that brings immediate training. There is an issue not just
about young people per se, but about those groups of young people for
whom getting a job at the age of 16 is a life-changing
experience.
Jim
Knight:
I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman’s
argument. I do not disagree with him about the importance of employment
to 16 to 18-year-olds as a means of improving their life chances and
increasing their maturity and so on. Would he not
agree that it is important that those jobs, or the experience of that
employment, gives them prospects? Most young people who are in jobs
without training are easily dispensed with. They move in and out of
employment, and they only have a future in employment if they raise
their level of
qualification.
Mr.
Hayes:
Yes, I think that raising the levels of skills
might be a better way of putting it. Of course skills are not just
about training. Some skills are acquired by doing the job. Let us be
clear that getting a job at the age of 16 for some young people may be
highly significant. It brings with it implicit virtues such as
experience and increased skills, not least the so-called soft skills
acquired through the disciplines and obligations associated with
working life. I suspect that that is disproportionately so for the most
challenged young people.
Training in the first year or so
may not happen in great measure beyond what I have described. I
remember taking on young people from school, sometimes young people
with poor soft skills, and not putting them into further training
immediately, because they needed to bed down in the job, and acquire
those fundamental strengths before they were equipped to take on such
training. It may well be the case that once a young person has got into
a job and has a foot on the ladder, climbing the ladder will take place
over a number of years.
I can remember one young man
whom we took on who subsequently rose in the company to a significant
position. He joined at 16, with poor academic qualifications and very
poor soft skills. I am not sure whether we put him on training courses
for the first year or two, but I know that he was skilled and trained,
and retrained and up-skilled, over subsequent years. There is therefore
strength in the hon. Member for Yeovil’s
case.
Mr.
Heald:
Is there not something missing from the
Minister’s case, as he is not really concentrating on the needs
of the business? One might employ a 16-year-old to do a very basic task
but if, for example, a receptionist goes on maternity leave, her
replacement might be sent on a course to learn reception work. The
training is all part of the needs of the business. With a small
business, there should not be such a rigid
programme.
Mr.
Hayes:
There is a rigidity in the Government’s
position, and that characteristic permeates their approach not just to
this part of the Bill, but to the Bill as a whole. That inflexibility
sits uncomfortably with the dynamism that is part of business, all the
more so as our economy and businesses become ever more advanced. The
required skills change rapidly, so upskilling and reskilling become
more and more
important.
The
young gentleman I described was taken on as an assistant warehouseman
at the age of 16—as my hon. Friend the Member for North-East
Hertfordshire said, one does not think of that as a demanding
job—and subsequently became a leading salesman in the company
and, as a result, probably extremely wealthy. So it is in business, but
sadly not in the life we have chosen,
Mr. Bercow. However, we have sacrificed those opportunities
for our commitment to the common good. In his final words on the
amendments, the hon. Member for Yeovil made an underpinning point. He
said that he had a series of reservations about the Bill, and listed
three of them. What unites those reservations is the sense of the
Government’s stubborn determination that the Bill should be an
inflexible measure, as my hon. Friend the Member for North-East
Hertfordshire pointed out a few moments ago.
The Government have resisted an
argument made not just be the Opposition but by many people who were
consulted about the Bill. We believe that when it comes to difficult
young people, skills and education, commerce and industry, it is not
stubbornness that is required, but a willingness to be flexible, so
that we can respond to changing circumstances, both as they affect
individuals and the needs of our economy. The hon. Member for Yeovil is
right that that stubbornness, which is personified by the
Minister’s handling of these matters, although not in every
other aspect of his existence is, to be blunt, unattractive.
It is because of that
stubbornness and inflexibility—that lack of
reasonableness—that the Bill has perhaps not received the
welcome that the Minister and the Government expected. I think that the
hon. Member for Yeovil was right—his three reservations are
well-made criticisms of this Bill, and his amendment is a probing one.
Unless the Minister can do rather better than he has done so far, I do
not think he will satisfy the hon. Gentleman, who will choose to do
what he will, but whatever that is, he will certainly have a
sympathetic ear from the official
Opposition.
I would just
say to the Minister that, in a perfect world, all companies and small
employers would offer training. Like him, however, I know that we do
not live in a perfect world. As a Member of Parliament, I am a small
employer and I do not think that I, or the taxpayer, have funded one
ounce of training for my staff since I have been in the
House.
Mr.
Walker:
Yes, that is a great shame, and it is something I
hope to correct in the future, having been enlightened by this
excellent debate.
To
be seriously, businesses make commercial decisions. Those decisions
they make may not appear rational to the economy at large, but they are
rational for those businesses. Many businesses do not offer training to
their staff, because they take the view that it is not commercially
viable for them to do so. We may say in the House that they are making
the wrong decision, and that they have not weighed up all the facts. If
they did so, they would be willing to fund training for their staff.
The case as it stands, however, is that many small businesses do not
fund training, probably because they are operating on very narrow
margins and are extremely cost-sensitive. Perhaps those businesses are
run by extremely good and decent people who would like to be in a
position to offer
training, but who simply believe that the bottom line is that they could
not afford to fund it. I am concerned that the Bill may have unintended
consequences, and it is right for us to debate them in a civil
manner.
If we place
formal training requirements on employers, there is a danger that there
will be some form of displacement, particularly for young people. Small
employers may turn to alternative sources of labour that appear
attractive but which have resisted up to this point—for example,
qualified workers from eastern Europe who can come into a business and
make an immediate contribution. By placing a training requirement on
employers, perhaps we will tip the balance so that the commercial
pressure to take on people from Poland and other eastern European
nations becomes
overwhelming.
12.45
pm
Many small
employers offer informal on-the-job training. When something goes
wrong, a person running a small business needs all hands to the pump.
Many young people working in small business obtain a far more diverse
experience of the workplace and its challenges than a youngster working
at the checkout in a supermarket. That youngster is hired to do that
job, and if something goes wrong, the store manager gets the person who
deals with things going wrong to deal with it. That is the young
person’s job—they stay there eight hours a day; they come
in, do their job and go, and they get
paid.
Although small
employers may not offer formal training, there are exciting
opportunities for on-the-job challenges. As we develop our discussions
on the Bill, we need to consider more closely how we help small
employers to formalise and accredit as a qualification what they are
already doing. Like many Members, I was extremely pleased to see that
McDonald’s—I know that it is a large employer—is
to give its young workers an accredited qualification. Too often, we
dismiss that work as a burger-flipping job, but McDonalds is a hugely
successful company, and many youngsters who work there go on to have
exciting careers running their own franchises or move on to other parts
of business and the service sector. I want the Bill to be a success,
and we must ensure that we encourage small employers to retain their
youngsters and recruit
more.
Mr.
Heald:
I have one small point to make. A contract of
employment is, in its own way, an important discipline for both the
employer and the employee. It contains important rights and duties of
both. For the employee, there are the hours of work, for which it is
important that they attend, the discipline that they are expected to
accept, reasonable training to have the capabilities for the job and a
whole range of duties. It also has the duties of the employer to pay
the wages, take account of health and safety and the other rights that
the law imposes on employers. It is important to say that entering the
world of work with a contract is not a minor thing but a major step
forward.
Angela
Watkinson:
My hon. Friend is making an important point.
Does he agree that the 16 and 17-year-olds who are the most difficult
to reach, who may have failed at school or been chronic non-attenders,
might flourish in the sort of environment
that he is describing, whereas they would be the least likely to knuckle
down to day release at college, for example? A small minority of young
people will be best suited to being in full-time
employment.
Mr.
Heald:
I am sure that that is right. I have heard a kindly
employer say to a young worker, “You are not on student hours
now.” That approach gives people discipline. Young people are
quite proud to have their contracts of employment and to be in work.
Often, as a result of their package of rights and responsibilities,
they are taken under the wing of somebody more experienced, such as a
supervisor or their employer. That is the beginning of the training
experience, because the employer wants that person to get on almost as
much as they themselves do, for the sake of the
business.
Jim
Knight:
As I said when I intervened on the hon. Member for
South Holland and The Deepings, I very much recognise the valuable
skills and experience that young people can get from working. However,
ultimately, I do not agree that working full time should exempt a young
person from participating in education or training. That is best
exemplified by our commitment to expand apprenticeships, which combine
the world of work and training towards a
qualification.
The
Committee will debate in full the duties on employers when we come to
chapter 3 of this part, so I will not delay it unduly by going into any
great detail about those duties. However, the hon. Member for
North-East Hertfordshire talked about the importance of focusing on the
needs of business. I will just say in passing, in reference to the
matters that we will debate in relation to that chapter, that it must
be a case of balancing the needs of employers and of young people.
Obviously, we think that we have the right balance in the Bill, but
that is what we are
debating.
At the
commencement of employment, employers can discuss with young people
what training would be appropriate for them. I do not think that that
is an onerous burden, as I have mentioned before. Employers then have
the choice of releasing the young person, which I would not encourage;
providing the training themselves—we have discussed the
Maccalaureate and other options that have been developed lately; or
arranging hours around training. I would stress that there is no
requirement for employers to fund that
training.
Mr.
Heald:
I will give the Minister a practical example.
Yesterday, I went around an engineering factory. Recently, another part
of the production process was converted to computer-aided manufacture,
and everyone who was involved in that part of the business had to be
trained. Staff who had been there previously but who had not been
trained in that area were trained. That was the reason that the
training happened. It was not because the Minister had told them to do
it.
Jim
Knight:
Clearly, that is a good thing, and there is
nothing in the legislation that would stop that continuing. Indeed, if
a programme of training was set
out for the work force, there are a number of means of accrediting that
training, which we will discuss as we go on to debate chapter
3.
As I have said again
and again, I believe that all young people should continue to
participate in education and training up to the age of 18, in order to
equip them with the skills and qualifications that they need for a
successful adult life in their present and future employment. There is
clear evidence that those people who do not have a level 2
qualification at the age of 16 and who go into jobs without training
are barely more likely to get a level 2 by the age of 19 than those who
are not in education, employment or training. Therefore, there is
evidence that to simply go into work and not go into some form of
accredited training affects their life chances and ability to go on to
other employment.
There
is a danger that the debate is based around a romanticised notion that
many young people go into honest, worthwhile permanent jobs at 16. That
can happen: young people can go into a low-skilled, warehouse-based
job, not receive any training, and then go on to be wonderfully well
paid executives driving nice BMWs and contributing large amounts to the
economy. I do not see anything in the legislation to stop that. All we
would say is that, in conjunction with their warehouse employment, they
should be doing some form of accredited training, which need not
involve their having to take time out of work, if the arrangements can
be made
flexibly.
However, I
think that the reality, reflected by evidence, is that many young
people go into temporary, casual, dead-end jobs and are the most
vulnerable to being laid off by employers when things become difficult.
There is a lot of churn between the NEET group and the group comprising
those who are in jobs without training, which suggests that, on its
own, being in employment is insufficient, and that such people need
more than that to improve their life chances. It is precisely those
young people who could be left behind in future: with insufficient
skills to progress in their careers, they will be the most vulnerable
to changes in the labour
market.
Mr.
Laws:
Can the Minister cite any evidence that the
prospects for young people who are in employment are going to be any
better if they have the qualifications that appear to give a lower
economic return than employment, to which Alison Wolf referred in her
evidence?
Jim
Knight:
Alison Wolf was referring to some NVQs that our
research shows do not give a great return; however, she ignored a raft
of other qualifications. When questioning her, we agreed that BTEC, and
City and Guilds, qualifications, for example, give a good return. There
is considerable evidence that those who gain qualifications while
working can benefit.
Mr.
Laws:
Of those youngsters whom the Minister expects to be
in work, training and gaining accredited qualifications, how many does
the Minister envisage actually gaining BTEC-type qualifications, or
qualifications with similar status and value, as opposed to NVQs and
other, lower-level
qualifications?
Jim
Knight:
Again, one of the difficulties in answering that
question is that we do not know the extent to which the landscape of
options will change between now and when the measures come into effect.
We will have extra apprenticeship places, which we have discussed,
people will be able to do diplomas part time, and we will introduce the
foundation learning tier for those of lower ability. Various options
are still on their way into the system, so it is difficult for me to
give a meaningful answer to that question
now.
Mr.
Laws:
Is the Minister saying that there are no
departmental assumptions about the type of accredited qualifications in
which young people in employment will engage? Surely the Department has
made some assumptions in that
respect.
Jim
Knight:
Of course we have assumptions: they informed the
research that we commissioned and are obviously informed by current
practice. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has read the
research—he does his own research so assiduously. He will have
seen that we have accounted for the current state of affairs before
allowing for the effect of diplomas, and that we have pitched that
effect about halfway between the effect of A-levels and the effect of
some of the vocational qualifications. The effects of the
apprenticeship frameworks and the foundation learning tier are also
built in to our assumptions. It all depends on the qualification
strategy that will be published this
year.
Part-time
accredited training will allow young people to gain recognition for
their achievement and demonstrate the skills that they have gained in a
meaningful and familiar way to future employers. The country and our
economy need those young people to engage in accredited training. The
Leitch report showed that there will be a growing need for more highly
skilled workers in future and that level 2 will not be
enough.
Compared with
2004, there are expected to be 2.6 million more workers at
level 3 by 2020, whereas the numbers below level 3 are expected to fall
by around 5 million. The higher lifetime earnings of people
with level 2 and 3 qualifications compared with those with low or no
qualifications will help to boost our economy. I am sure that that
informs the support for the proposals that we have had from employer
organisations such as the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce
which, in its brief on the Bill, said that it welcomes the
Government’s proposal to increase the compulsory participation
age to 18 and to expand the number of available
apprenticeships.
It
being One o’clock, The Chairman
adjour
ned the Committee without Question put,
pursuant to the Standing
Order.
Adjourned
till this day at Four
o’clock.
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