Clause
58
Educational
institutions: access and
facilities
Mr.
Hayes:
I beg to move amendment No. 98, in
clause 58, page 31, line 32, after
‘56(1)(b)’, insert
‘and subject
to the consent of the pupil or
student.’.
As
you will have noticed, Mr. Bayley, after his arduous work
over recent weeks, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton is having a rather quieter time this morning than he has
had thus far. The burden has fallen heavily on me. None the less, he
has been useful and supportive, as always in our team, in reminding me
of the substance of the amendment. According to the explanatory
notes:
“Clause
58 places a duty on the responsible persons for educational
institutions to allow Connexions service providers reasonable access to
pupils and students and to provide reasonable facilities on the
institution’s premises for providing
services.”
The
amendment is straightforward, and it simply says that the powers that
Connexions service providers are given should
be
“subject to the
consent of the pupil or
student.”
That is
important, because it underpins the approach that we have taken
throughout our considerations that the Bill must be about engaging
young people by encouraging them to make a positive commitment, rather
than obliging them in a way that is likely to exacerbate their
detachment from learning and skilling. We have relentlessly championed
the cause of those young people, particularly the most vulnerable, and
I make no apologies for doing so. It is my mission in politics to speak
most loudly for those least able to speak for themselves. In that
spirit, I am proud to have moved the amendment that stands in my name
and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and
Littlehampton, who has given me such assistance in making this short
peroration.
Jim
Knight:
I start by congratulating the hon. Member for
South Holland and The Deepings and his scriptwriter, the hon. Member
for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, on that peroration. The effect of
the amendment would be to prevent Connexions services from having
access to students and available facilities in their place of learning,
unless consent was given by the student. That would make it much more
difficult for the Connexions service to provide support to young
people, and it would also create an unhelpful, complicated and
confusing layer of bureaucracy for schools and
colleges.
Learning
providers already enable all students to access Connexions, so that the
service can offer them support. As local authorities are going to take
responsibility for providing the Connexions service, the present
arrangements should continue. If that were not the case, it would
significantly jeopardise the effectiveness of the Connexions service.
If accepted, the amendment would mean that the Connexions service would
be unable to access in their place of learning young people who failed
or refused to give their consent. Very often, those young people are
the most vulnerable ones, and include individuals with behavioural
problems or chaotic lifestyles—the very
people whom the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings has told
us it is his mission in politics to
represent. The
amendment would effectively bar Connexions services from helping the
young people who need their support the most. I do not believe that
that is the hon. Gentleman’s intention. I believe it is rather
to ensure that if learning providers provide Connexions services access
to their students, the students are under no obligation to accept the
offer of Connexions support unless they choose to do so. That is
existing practice, particularly in the case of one-to-one support,
where the student has actively to engage with the Connexions personal
adviser of their own volition.
The clause, as drafted, will
continue to facilitate the existing arrangements, which are vital to
the successful operations of Connexions services. There is no question
of a young person being put in detention so that they can be forced to
have a meeting with the personal adviser. It would remain a voluntary
activity on the part of the young person. I would not want Connexions
to be unable to go on to a school site without a specific piece of
consent from a specific
pupil.
Mr.
Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con): One of the
problems that arises at some further education colleges is that popular
courses are oversubscribed. If there is a hairdressing suite, for
example, it can only take so many hairdressers. Would the provision
interfere with that in any way? Would it enable a Connexions adviser to
force somebody on to a hairdressing course if there was not really room
for
them?
Jim
Knight:
No, it would not interfere with that at all. There
is no question of personal advisers forcing individuals on to
particular courses. It is important that young people are motivated to
take
courses.
Mr.
Heald:
I did not mean forcing an individual to do a
course, but forcing the institution to take an extra individual when
that course is
full.
Jim
Knight:
I do not believe that the service would have the
power to force institutions to take individuals on to certain courses.
The only powers of which I am aware are those that require institutions
to accept individuals of compulsory school age. Those matters are dealt
with in the admissions code, which has statutory force. The change that
we made in the Education and Inspections Act 2006 means that a local
authority can require an institution to take a looked-after child if it
is in the best interests of that child’s education. I hope that
in the light of my response to those interventions and my reasoning the
hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.
Mr.
Hayes:
I shall not press the amendment,
although I want to re-emphasise my point: the system will work only if
it inspires young people to make their own commitment to be advised and
trained. It will not work if young people are dragged grudgingly,
kicking and screaming, towards the Connexions adviser, then forced on
to a training course that they do not want to take.
That will simply not work. During the passage of the Bill, we have made
that point repeatedly—amplified beautifully by my hon. Friend
the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton in particular—but
I am not sure that it has been heard clearly by Ministers. Although I
beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment, I suspect that we will
return to the matter time and again in the continuing passage of the
legislation.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
58
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
59
Internet
and telephone support services
etc
Mr.
Hayes:
I beg to move amendment No. 184, in
clause 59, page 32, line 11, at
end insert—
‘(c) the
information, advice or guidance to be provided by telephone or other
electronic means may include information and options expressed by
persons who have pursued or are pursuing education, training or careers
which are of interest to the said young persons and relevant young
adults.’.
This
group of
amendments—
The
Chairman:
To clarify the position for the hon.
Gentleman’s benefit, we are considering the two amendments
separately: at the moment we are debating amendment No. 184; we will
come to amendment No. 185
later.
Mr.
Hayes:
I am grateful, Mr. Bayley. I have notes
on both amendments, but I accept that we are dealing with them
separately.
Amendment
No. 184 would insert additional subsection (c) into the clause, and I
will illustrate the subject with a word or two about the view of the
distinguished educational charity, Edge. Clause 59
says:
“The
Secretary of State may provide or secure the provision of services for
encouraging, enabling or assisting the effective participation of young
persons and relevant young adults in England in education or
training.”
As Edge
reminds us, that includes the publication of information, advice and
guidance, and responding to particular requests for information
electronically or by telephone. The provision for advice is important,
and clause 59 should be read alongside clause 66, which requires
schools to provide impartial information and advice for education,
training and
careers.
As an aside,
I am anxious that the advice given by schools and colleges and the
advice given by Connexions should be consistent. In our last debate, we
talked about the new powers that Connexions will have to offer advice
in educational institutions, but we did not explore in detail the risk
of inconsistency, which might come from advice being given by different
people to individuals in schools and colleges. The Minister might want
to deal with that in his
summation.
11.45
am
The Edge
foundation welcomes the clauses, because they emphasise the importance
of comprehensive and impartial information, advice
and guidance on educational training and careers. However, it believes
that if young people are interested in a particular course or career,
they should be able to hear directly from people who have pursued, or
are pursuing, that course or career.
There are many ways in which that can be achieved, but the internet
opens up almost unlimited opportunities. That argument has considerable
merit. Young people are often most inspired by people who have done
something themselves. Through such examples, we can engage people whom
we might not successfully encourage down a particular professional
route by other means. Edge uses as an example the national youth
volunteering service, which provides substantial financial support for
a web-based service called “horsesmouth”. Through
horsesmouth, people considering different options for learning and
careers put questions to people who have faced similar choices. The
website says: “When faced with a
choice, challenge or change in life, do you ever wonder how other
people have coped in the same situation—what choices did they
make, and how did they turn out? Wouldn’t it be useful if you
could talk to someone who has been there, done that and is willing to
share their first-hand experience with you? Wouldn’t it be great
fun if that could be anonymous, confidential and
secure?”
Such services
should form a core part of the service offered by the Secretary of
State in pursuance of the power created by clause 59, and that is the
purpose of amendment No. 184. Essentially, the argument is that we
should use the latest technology, emulate the best existing practice,
and recognise that young people are often most influenced by seeing how
something has been done through the eyes of someone else who has done
it.
Mr.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool, South) (Lab): I am listening
with interest to the case that the hon. Gentleman is making for other
mechanisms to give information, advice and guidance, not least the
suggestions from Edge and horsesmouth. Is he aware that the all-party
skills group is conducting an inquiry into information, advice and
guidance? That report will be published in due course, to the
edification, I hope, of everyone, including
Ministers.
Mr.
Hayes:
Yes , I was aware of that, because I
do, as the hon. Gentleman knows, maintain a healthy dialogue with the
all-party group. In fact, I am pleased to have been invited to attend
and speak at events organised by the hon. Gentleman, and I pay tribute
to his work in that regard. I hope that the all-party group will come
to a similar conclusion to the one that I have reached on advice and
guidance, which I have articulated at considerable, but not sufficient,
length.
There is good
practice out there, and not all of it revolves around the mainstream
institutions. It stems partly from the dynamism offered by technology,
from which we can learn from and which therefore needs to be built into
our thinking when considering this part of the Bill. I do not know if
the all-party group has had a chance to look at that proposal, but if
they have not, it may not be too late to use the provision as a
catalyst for doing so.
Mr.
Marsden:
Although we are an all-party
group and not subject to the requirements of Select Committees, it
would be invidious to go into too much detail ant what may, or may not,
be proposed. However, this is an area in which everyone, including the
Government, wishes to look carefully at new mechanisms. The question
is: what are the precise devices for using the new
mechanisms?
Mr.
Hayes:
I did not want to compromise the hon.
Gentleman’s position, as I am sure he knows, but we have had a
helpful exchange. The way in which people gather, exchange and use
information has changed immensely, and continues to do so. That lies at
the core of our considerations today. The fact that we are talking
about young people only exaggerates the significance of that point,
because I suspect that many young people are accustomed to accessing
information wholly or mainly by technological means. That is why Edge
has done us a service in advising us on these matters, and I am
delighted to reflect its perspective in the
amendment.
Jim
Knight:
I agree with Edge, with the hon. Member for South
Holland and The Deepings, and with my hon. Friend the Member for
Blackpool, South, that it is important that young people should have
access to the opinions and experiences of those who are already engaged
in education, training or a particular career. I am pleased to be able
to tell the Committee that the national service, Connexions direct,
provides that material on its excellent website,
www.connexions-direct.com, and I am sure the hon. Member for South
Holland and The Deepings will be reaching as we speak for his hand-held
device to access it, Mr. Bayley, if that is in
order.
Furthermore, if
a young person cannot find a case study that is relevant to them, they
can inform the Connexions contractor, who will take steps to find or
commission an appropriate case study. That is precisely what Edge and
the hon. Gentleman are interested in. There are close links between
Connexions direct and organisations such as sector skills councils,
which have databases of case studies that can be accessed. Connexions
direct is an extremely successful service for young people in England,
and it also offers an excellent helpline on 080 800 13219. There are
more than 100,000 visits a week to the website, with an average 6,000
contacts to the helpline. The service has won several awards, and it
offers information, advice and guidance at a time and in a way that is
convenient and tailored to the needs of young people, particularly
those who like to access their information by technology. Connexions
direct is always considering new ways and initiatives to improve its
service, and I am sure it will have listened carefully to what hon.
Members have said, and will listen to what the all-party group report
and Edge might tell
it.
As for the
consistency between schools and Connexions that the hon. Member for
South Holland and The Deepings raised at the beginning of his speech,
14-to-19 partnerships have responsibility to ensure proper
co-ordination between careers education in schools and the information,
advice and guidance provided by Connexions and local authorities. The
quality standards set out that requirement, and I have already referred
to the importance of those standards. Local 14-to-19 consortiums have
to show that they meet the standards to progress through the diploma
gateway. As the service the hon. Gentleman requires is already
available, and will continue to be so under the clause as drafted, and
given the indications I have made to the Committee, I invite him to
withdraw the amendment.
Mr.
Hayes:
I appreciate the Minister’s remarks. This is
a probing amendment, designed to highlight an important matter. The
Minister might want to reflect further on the generality of this
debate, given what the hon. Member for Blackpool, South and I have said
and what Edge has observed. By the time that the Bill is enacted,
assuming that that is so—we have no guarantee that the Bill will
ever become law—it could easily be the case that anything other
than the advice and guidance that is offered through the means that
horsesmouth uses will be regarded as archaic. In that context, we need
to be absolutely clear about how we use the available technology to
best effect.
The
revolution has only just begun, and although I am a deep Conservative
and am resistant to all revolutions, I suspect that we have to deal
with the inevitability of a changed world with regard to the use,
exchange and distribution of information. Nevertheless, on the basis of
what the Minister has said and the chance that we have had to explore
those matters, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Mr.
Hayes:
I beg to move amendment No. 185, in
clause 59, page 32, line 11, at
end insert—
‘(c) the
provision, in response to requests by young persons and relevant young
adults with visual impairment, of text books and educational course
materials, capable of enlargement and enhancement by electronic
means.’.
This
is the amendment that I tried to move earlier, but you advised me that
I could not do so, Mr. Bayley.
The
Chairman:
It was a simple matter of looking at my
selection
list.
Mr.
Hayes:
Indeed. The amendment speaks for itself. We have
not said much—indeed, we have perhaps said too
little—about how the Bill will affect young people with various
kinds of disability. Among the population of NEETs, as I lamented
earlier, is a substantial number of young people with learning
difficulties or other disabilities, and we need to concentrate
particularly on their needs if we are to be successful in providing
them with appropriate training that is likely to allow them to gain
employment. The amendment deals with one group of young people: those
with visual impairment. We ought, however, to find ways during the
passage of the Bill to speak more broadly about disabled young people
and people with learning difficulties.
The
Chairman:
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that this is
an important but very narrow amendment dealing with visual impairment.
He rightly says that there might be opportunities elsewhere in the Bill
to discuss other disabilities, but we should stick to visual
impairment, because it is with that that the amendment is
concerned.
Mr.
Hayes:
I take your point, Mr. Bayley. I did
say, very much in that spirit, that we might find an opportunity to
debate the wider issue at another time, but this debate is specifically
about people with visual impairment. The amendment would implicitly add
value to clause 59. It is important that we make adequate provision for
young people who might otherwise be disfranchised simply because they
cannot access the materials necessary to improve their circumstances. I
find it almost inconceivable that, on that basis, the Minister will
fail to accept the
amendment.
12
noon
Angela
Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): This is an important if
narrow amendment, which gives us the opportunity to right a wrong of
which I was not previously aware, as may have been the case for other
members of the Committee. It was drawn to my attention last year. Hon.
Members may recall a lobby in Westminster Hall called “Right to
Read”, in which parents of sight-impaired children came to
Parliament lobby their MPs about their inability to access textbooks
and learning material in
schools.
At the
moment, when a partially sighted pupil in a mainstream school goes to a
lesson, the teacher must identify the relevant pages of the textbook
that will be used and photocopy them. That takes up teaching time and
delays the partially sighted pupil’s ability to start work.
There are also obvious disadvantages with homework, as the situation
deters those children from working independently. Initial inquiries
that I made last year have led me to understand that there is not a
copyright problem in having school textbooks available online, so that
individual partially sighted pupils can enlarge and enhance the
relevant text to their own
needs.
It follows that
the same problem will apply in college. I would therefore like to take
the opportunity to make teaching materials available to partially
sighted pupils in college, because it gives them independence and they
will not have to rely on the additional service of teachers. If they
could access all their teaching materials and textbooks independently
online, it would be of enormous advantage to them, and it is relatively
simple to make such material
available.
Jim
Knight:
I am in complete agreement with the hon. Members
for South Holland and The Deepings and for Upminster that young people
with visual impairments should be able to derive the same benefit from
information provision as their
peers.
I applaud the
hon. Member for Upminster for raising the “Right to Read”
campaign and the importance of school textbooks being accessible to
people with visual impairments. I will not be distracted for long in
responding to her concerns, because I am aware of the narrowness of the
amendment, Mr. Bayley, as you reminded the hon. Member for
South Holland and The Deepings. However, part IV of the Disability
Discrimination Act 1995 requires schools and local authorities to plan
to improve access to the curriculum and written materials to disabled
pupils over time. In addition, the new disability equality duty
introduced by the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 into the 1995 Act
requires all public bodies, including schools and local authorities, to
promote disability equality more widely. As a result, new subsection
49A(1)(d), which deals with the general duty, includes
“the need to take steps to take
account of disabled persons’ disabilities, even where that
involves treating disabled persons more favourably than other
persons”.
That is the
duty under which we would want to see that problem
addressed.
Angela
Watkinson:
May I just add that 2008 is the national year
of reading, so it would be the ideal time to take this
step?
Jim
Knight:
It certainly is the national
year of reading. I had an excellent meeting with the consortium that is
helping us to deliver it yesterday. I will look at whether there are
opportunities to develop reading materials for the group which the hon.
Member for Upminster
discussed.
As hon.
Members may be aware, my Department’s special educational needs
strategy, “Removing Barriers to Achievement”, sets out
our vision for giving children with special educational needs and
disabilities the opportunity to succeed. Furthermore, as I have said,
there are various duties in the disability discrimination legislation
that cover the needs of visually impaired young people, as is the case
with other disability groups. The national service, Connexions direct,
which is subject to the amendment, has taken great steps to ensure that
its services are available to people with visual impairment. It is
concerned with the provision of information, advice and support to
young people, rather than with the provision of course materials, which
was raised by the hon. Member for Upminster. To meet best practice and
Government accessibility guidelines, the Connexions direct website has
been developed to comply with the web accessibility initiative of the
World Wide Web Consortium. Connexions direct has worked extensively
with the Royal National Institute of Blind People to ensure that, as
far as possible, its materials are accessible to people with visual
impairments. I have a list of about seven things they have done to meet
that standard.
As a
result of making those changes and design amendments, Connexions direct
was successful in winning a visionary design award for the
site’s outstanding efforts in ensuring the accessibility of
content for visually impaired users. I am assured that it is committed
to keeping that design on its website, to which the amendment refers. I
trust that, in the light of that assurance, and the fact that this
really is an example of best practice, the hon. Member for South
Holland and The Deepings will withdraw his
amendment.
Mr.
Hayes:
I will do so but, first, I wish to endorse the
remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster that this is a
critically important matter. I am delighted to hear that Connexions has
won that award and that it takes seriously its work for visually
impaired young people. The access to information for visually impaired
people is variable—I am not speaking in particular about
Connexions, but about access more generally—which explains our
determination to highlight the matter by tabling an amendment. The
Minister has responded positively to the matters raised by my hon.
Friend the Member for Upminster and myself, but we will not rest until
we are sure that those good intentions are carried through and that
visually
impaired young people have the same opportunities that are enjoyed by
all other young people. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment
on the basis of the assurances we have received
today.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
59 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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