 House of Commons |
Session 2007 - 08 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Education and Skills Bill |
Education and Skills Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Nick
Walker, Tom Goldsmith, Committee
Clerks
† attended the
Committee
Public Bill CommitteeThursday 7 February 2008(Afternoon)[John Bercow in the Chair]Education and Skills BillClause 7Relevant
period
Question
proposed [this day], That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
1
pm
Question
again
proposed.
The
Minister for Schools and Learners (Jim Knight):
What a
delight it is to see you in your place, Mr. Bercow, and to
be serving under your guidance this afternoon.
Clause 7 defines the relevant
period, and says when it starts and finishes. We had a fascinating
discussion about that. In particular, we explored the scenario posed by
the hon. Member for Yeovil about what happens when a course collapses,
in his phrase, and whether that would lead to a decision from an
attendance panel and whether the collapse of a course would be a
reasonable excuse. I do not intend to detain the Committee, suffice it
to deal with that scenario. Hopefully, we will then decide on the
clause, which I obviously recommend to the Committee.
If a
person’s part-time training collapsed while they were in
full-time work, the case would not of course go anywhere near an
attendance panel, because support would kick in at that
point—enforcement would be inappropriate, assuming that no other
appropriate course was available. The relevant period stops when the
young person stops participating in full-time education or an
apprenticeship, or when the next academic year begins. It would not be
suspended if a course is withdrawn. If that happened, the learning
provider or Connexions would help to provide an alternative. While a
person is receiving help or waiting for the identified alternative
course to begin, they would not be subject to enforcement action,
because they would have a reasonable excuse and because the local
authority cannot take any such action unless a young person has been
given adequate opportunity to participate voluntarily. Clearly, the
absence of an alternative suitable course would mean that a person has
not been given adequate opportunity to participate voluntarily, so no
enforcement action would be taken. I hope that that satisfies the hon.
Gentleman and the rest of the Committee.
Mr.
David Laws (Yeovil) (LD): I am grateful to the Minister,
and I welcome you back to the Chair for this afternoon’s
sitting, Mr. Bercow.
The Minister
helpfully clarified some of his comments, but I wish to press him a
little further. He said that if someone’s course collapses,
which would mean that
they were no longer compliant with the education and training
requirement, they would be helped to find an alternative by the
education provider. Does he accept that in a rural area, for example,
there might not be an alternative provider within a reasonable
distance? There is a real issue about what alternative provision might
be in such a situation. The expectations of a young person who is
interested in some specific course or support that was offered through
a college might be different from the alternatives.
There are examples in my
constituency where, on a number of occasions, courses have not got off
the ground or they have fallen through part way through the year. I
have received letters from people who are very upset at having lost
that provision and who clearly do not feel that a reasonable
alternative has been offered. I am not sure that I want those people to
be pushed back into an alternative that is specified by the college or
by a local authority as suitable, because that might not meet the needs
of the young
person.
Jim
Knight:
It will be incumbent on the local
authority—clause 10 specifies the authorities’ duty to
promote fulfilment—to ensure that an alternative is appropriate.
People should not be compelled to take up an inappropriate offer of
education or training made by their
advisers.
Mr.
Laws:
I understand the Minister’s
point, but it does not necessarily reassure us that, in areas where the
breadth of provision might not be as wide as we would like, viable
alternatives will be available that young people want to take up. I am
still unsure whether enforcement action would be taken if a course fell
through in the mid-year period or even early in the conventional
academic year. What if no other course was on offer that matched the
original needs of the young people and there was not to be another
course until at least the new academic year when, say, a new teacher
might be in place? Would those young people be required against their
wishes to enter another course for a time instead of waiting until the
new course was established in the new academic
year?
Jim
Knight:
If no other relevant training or education was
available that was appropriate to the young person, enforcement action
could not be taken. As soon as the matter reached the attendance panel,
it would throw it out as the young person having had reasonable excuse
for not fulfilling his
duty.
Mr.
Laws:
I do not want to labour the issue, but the Minister
puts local authorities in a difficult position. He referred to relevant
education and training. Who is to say whether it would be relevant for
a young person with aspirations in a particular career sector, and who
was looking for particular education and training, suddenly to discover
that the course that they wanted, had been offered or were, perhaps,
on, folded and, instead of being offered a course relevant to their
needs, they were offered something that sounded to the education
provider and local authority to be something that they would expect the
young person to be involved in, but the young person did not wish to be
involved in it? I accept that we cannot resolve the problem now, but
will the hon. Gentleman reflect on it and consider
whether that person will have the option to stay out of what he believes
to be inappropriate education or training until, for example, the right
type of new course becomes available in the new academic
year?
Jim
Knight:
Clause 4 sets out appropriate full-time education
and training. However, we are discussing part-time education and
training because the people are in full-time employment. It is not
appropriate for me to prescribe the detail in respect of individual
scenarios. That is why independent attendance panels are part of the
design of the whole system. As we have discussed, the local authority
may enforce; it does not have to enforce. Local authority officers
would have to assess whether or not to take up the option knowing that
their local attendance panel would judge matters on the basis of
whether there was an alternative appropriate form of
training.
Mr.
Laws:
That is precisely what I am worried about and
dislike. The Minister says that it will be up to local officials to
decide what they think is in the best interests of young people and to
withdraw that power from the young people themselves. On the say-so of
those individuals, young people could be forced back into a course
mid-year that is completely unsuitable and that they do not wish to
take up in order to meet the Government’s targets and to
demonstrate that 100 per cent. of the cohorts are in education and
training, instead of their being allowed to stay out of the education
and training market until a suitable course is
available.
Mr.
John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con): It
seems that the hon. Gentleman has the Minister on the horns of a
dilemma. On the one hand, the Minister says that there will be
flexibility in that the local authorities will have discretion yet, on
the other hand, he is saying now, and was so during our hungry pursuit
of such matters just before lunch, that he will not amend the Bill to
broaden the definition of what training will be permitted, to include
all that is meaningful and appropriate. He said that it must be
relevant. That is a highly loaded term. The Minister wants the Bill to
be inflexible, but interpreted
flexibly.
Mr.
Laws:
I agree entirely. The hon. Gentleman makes yet
another devastating point, which helps to hit at the very structure of
the Bill and the compulsion contained within
it.
Jim
Knight:
I am not devastated by the
point, but by my apparent inability to persuade the hon. Gentleman that
things will not be down to the individual officer. In the end, an
attendance panel would have to be persuaded, so it is down to several
individuals. If it is clear that there is no alternative relevant
training or education, it would be a perfectly reasonable excuse for
the individual to carry on for some period with full-time employment,
waiting for an appropriate part-time course to become
available.
Mr.
Laws:
That may be of some use, but I fear that it is so
vague that what it means in practice could vary enormously throughout
the country. Let us take the
example provided by the National Union of Teachers of a young person on
a car mechanics course who also wants to do an accountancy
qualification, not wanting to be in the car mechanics business for
ever. Let us say that the young person gets on a course at a college to
do some form of accountancy relevant to their aspirations. The
individual who runs the course becomes ill, moves away or is made
redundant, and the course collapses. No equivalent course is available
in the catchment area, and the local authority then considers what
other courses are available in the college setting. There may be a
business-related course, or a mathematics for business course. Are
those acceptable relevant alternatives that the Minister would want to
compel the young person to take up?
Alternatively,
if the young person considered that the courses might be relevant in
some way to their general interest, but were not the specific course
they wanted and they wanted the option to wait perhaps 18 months for
the next accountancy course to come along—after the further
education college had, hopefully, recruited a new person—how on
earth could local authorities know what the definition of
“relevant” is, to determine whether to force the young
person to take the alternative course? Will we end up with all sorts of
different circumstances around the country, depending on the generosity
of the local officers’ view, and their interpretation of the
Minister’s comments which may also
vary?
Jim
Knight:
I would expect those advising the young person to
be mindful of where they wanted to end up, of whether there was an
alternative appropriate to the pathway of learning on which they were
set, and of whether taking up a course in the interim before the
alternative became available would preclude the funding of the
alternative that the young person really wanted. All those things would
have to be borne in mind so that the young person could achieve his
potential and go on the pathway he was after. In this case,
“relevant” is irrelevant, if that is not too confusing.
It does not mean that the course must be relevant to anything that the
young person is doing or wants to do, but simply that it is relevant
for the purposes of part-time education or training as a way of
fulfilling the
duty.
Mr.
Laws:
We understand that “relevant” may be
irrelevant, but we are still confused about how the duties will be
applied in practice, and we fear that there will be an enormous element
of judgment surrounding the matter.
Mr.
Laws:
The Minister calls it flexibility.
I call it confusion, potentially, in the way in which the duty may be
implemented in the future. I shall not labour the point, Mr.
Bercow, not only because I may try your patience, but because there may
be other opportunities later in the Bill to clarify the point by way of
amendments.
May I
prompt the Minister to consider the subsidiary issue that I raised of
circumstances in which the course has not collapsed, but the young
person’s interest in or commitment to it has ended? We heard a
lot of evidence in the evidence sessions that the rate at
which young people leave such courses early on is very high. Presumably,
many of those leave on a voluntary basis. Are the attendance panels and
local authorities likely to take a different attitude towards young
people who decide to terminate their involvement in a course compared
with those whose course terminates their involvement? Will there be
less
flexibility?
1.15
pm
Jim
Knight:
No, the same flexibility will
have to apply. I remind the Committee that we are talking about people
in full-time employment who are also in part-time training. One would
expect the personal Connexions adviser to bear in mind the needs of the
individual. If they have become disengaged from their part-time course,
another part-time course should be found that they have a reasonable
chance of completing and which will fulfil their needs. They must not
use the ability to nip from one thing to the other to flout their
duties under the
Bill.
Mr.
Laws:
I assume that if a young person leaves a course very
late in the academic year, it will be possible to reach the conclusion
that restarting another course at that stage would not be sensible.
They should be given some latitude to wait until a new course
starts.
Jim
Knight:
In that scenario, it might be pragmatic to wait
until the prescribed date set out in clause 7(3)(a), which by
regulation is very likely to be the start of the next academic
year.
Mr.
Laws:
I am grateful to the Minister for his patience and
for his responses. I think that we have made a tiny bit of progress and
we will return to this
issue.
Question put
and agreed
to.
Clause
7
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
|
| |
| ©Parliamentary copyright 2008 | Prepared 8 February 2008 |