Mr.
Hayes: That sounds fair enough to me. I beg to ask leave
to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Amendment
made: 312, in
clause 63, page 41, line 9, at
end insert— ‘(3) The YPLA
may secure the provision of suitable education for children subject to
youth detention.’.—(Jim
Knight.) This
amendment gives the YPLA the power to secure the provision of education
for children subject to youth
detention. Clause
63, as amended, ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
64Intervention
for purpose of securing provision of education and
training
Jim
Knight: I beg to move amendment 313, in
clause 64, page 41, line 12, after
‘perform’ insert ‘—
(a)’. This amendment,
with amendment 314, amends clause 64 to confer power on the YPLA to
intervene if an LEA has failed or is likely to fail to perform its
duties in respect of people subject to youth
detention.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following: Government amendment
314. Amendment
393, in
clause 64, page 41, line 16, leave
out ‘YPLA may’ and insert
‘Secretary of State, upon receipt
of a recommendation from the YPLA,
may’. Government
amendment
315. Amendment
394, in
clause 64, page 41, line 21, leave
out subsection
(4). Amendment
395, in
clause 64, page 41, line 24, leave
out ‘YPLA’ and insert Secretary of
State’. Amendment
120, in
clause 64, page 41, line 24, at
end add— ‘(6) A further
education college may inform YPLA if it is satisfied that a local
education authority is failing, or is likely to fail, to perform its
duty under section 15ZA of the Education Act
1996.’.
Jim
Knight: It is essential that every young person is able to
access high quality learning. That means that we must provide for the
event that a local authority is not able to carry out its
commissioning functions, and ensure that young people and providers in
the local authority area are not disadvantaged because of that.
Government amendments 313 to 315 support new local authority duties in
relation to young offenders by giving
the YPLA the power to intervene if a local authority has failed, or is
likely to fail, to perform its duties in respect of people subject to
youth detention. Without the amendments, the YPLA would be powerless to
ensure that those young people receive the education that they deserve
under the
circumstances. Amendments
393 to 395 would give the Secretary of State rather than the YPLA the
necessary powers to give directions to a local authority, when the YPLA
was satisfied that the local authority was failing or likely to fail in
its duty under new section 15ZA and the amendments to it. However, the
YPLA is far better positioned to give those directions. The YPLA has a
remit to ensure that funding achieves the best balance of provision to
meet young people’s needs and that overall budgetary control is
maintained. Clause 64 gives the YPLA supporting power to ensure that it
is able to fulfil that remit. Fundamentally, the YPLA will work with
local authorities, and it will have a strong regional presence and that
understanding of what is happening on the ground. As we have discussed,
the Secretary of State will appoint the members of the board and ensure
that there is good accountability for the decisions that the YPLA
makes, and therefore rather than having to pass these issues up to the
Secretary of State I hope that the Committee agrees that it is more
appropriate for the YPLA to make the
decisions. The
intention behind amendment 120 is to ensure that colleges have a right
of appeal to the YPLA if they are unhappy with the funding or
commissioning decision taken by the local authority. I have already
mentioned the provisions in clause 70 under which the YPLA must prepare
and consult with appropriate persons on a policy statement that sets
out the details of its policy on its powers of intervention. That
consultation will give stakeholders such as the Local Government
Association, local authorities, the Association of Colleges, individual
providers, and other parties that have a stake in the success of local
authority commissioning processes, the opportunity to ensure that the
intervention policy is suitable and that the triggers for intervention
are appropriate. The effect of the amendment would be to enshrine in
legislation the ability of further education colleges in particular to
inform the YPLA when they are concerned that a local authority is
failing. Although
we understand the potential concerns of colleges in particular, this
amendment does not provide sufficient latitude for others with a
similar interest to have that same degree of statutory influence.
Instead, we believe that the combination of clause 64 and
clause 70 will mean that the intervention process ensures
that there are the right triggers and levers for all concerned, not
just colleges. We are working with those partners to develop a draft of
such a strategy and I will be happy to share that with the Committee at
the earliest possible
opportunity. I
hope that, having given all those fine assurances and indeed continuing
with the theme of clarity that I spoke about when we were discussing
the last amendment, hon. Members will agree that their amendments are
unnecessary. 9.30
pm
Mr.
Laws: I am grateful to the Minister for anticipating a lot
of what I might have said about amendments 393 to 395, amendment 120
and, if you will allow me,
Mr. Chope, because it covers similar territory,
amendment 396, although obviously we will be formally
debating that amendment later under clause
69. I
want to turn to amendment 120 to start with. This is the amendment that
would give colleges a right of appeal to the YPLA if they are unhappy
with a funding or commissioning decision taken by a local authority,
which shows that even the Liberal Democrats can accept that
occasionally local authorities will not be perfect.
I think that
the Minister was saying two slightly different things. They are not
necessarily inconsistent, but they are two slightly different reasons
why he does not want to accept amendment 120. I think that he was
saying, first, that amendment 120 would give appeal rights to one
particular group that would not be available to others. However, I
think that he was also saying that he felt that elsewhere within the
legislation there would be mechanisms for dealing with local authority
failure. I was not quite clear, though, whether he feels that the
existing legislation formalises those rights of appeal for
bodies such as colleges, or if they really rely upon the YPLA itself to
identify from other information circumstances in which a local
authority would be failing.
Presumably,
there is nothing to stop a college writing to or notifying the YPLA
about concerns that it may have. However, perhaps I could ask the
Minister to clarify whether he really thinks that the existing
legislation gives appeal rights that are clear enough and I also want
to ask him if he would be willing to accept amendment 120 if
it was more even-handed in relation to other bodies that might also
want to exercise such appeal
rights. The
other amendments—amendments 393 to 395, and the later amendment
on clause 69, which is amendment 396—all seek to
strike what we feel is a better balance between the authority of the
YPLA and that of the local authority, which would essentially place a
duty on the YPLA to seek a democratic mandate from the Secretary of
State before exercising powers over a democratically elected
council.
The Minister,
perhaps understandably, expressed some concerns about whether all of
these matters that a local authority was not delivering on would
appropriately be passed up to the Secretary of State or the Department.
However, I draw to his attention the fact that, in clause
64(4), there is already a requirement for the YPLA
to: “consult
the Secretary of State before exercising the power conferred by this
section.” Therefore,
given that there will be a duty on the YPLA to consult, will the
Minister consider whether it is appropriate for the YPLA, particularly
as it is an unproven organisation, to use the quite considerable powers
that it will be granted by this Bill to exercise powers over a
democratically elected tier of government, in circumstances where the
Government are supposed to be championing what senior members of the
Government have often talked about as “a new localism”?
Here,
however, we seem to be giving really quite considerable powers to an
agency, without there being any proper democratic oversight or any
other democratic
check. Jim
Knight: In respect of the hon. Gentleman’s last
point, it is important that the Secretary of State is consulted, in
order to deal with the point that he has just made that these are
democratic organisations and that the Department should be properly
aware of what the YPLA might do. As we see elsewhere, if we want an
agency to be listened to, it needs to have some teeth—some
sticks in the background alongside its carrots of funding, which it
will be distributing liberally in accordance with local authority
commissioning plans. That is, in essence, why the balance is right. I
always reflect on what the Committee has debated to make sure that hon.
Members have not pointed out a weakness contained in the
Bill.
We are also
working to develop a complaint and issue resolution process in relation
to 16-to-19 provision and we are working with stakeholders, including
the AOC, in the discussion and development of that complaints
procedure. There are a number of broad principles that have been agreed
with them about how that might work. It is important that that process
is in place for the reasons that have been set out, beyond the
fundamental principle, as set out in the clauses. It is important that
there is an intervention policy which has been properly and formally
consulted on—it is set out in clause 70—and that
everybody understands how those processes will operate so that if
interventions are then used, they follow a proper process and, if they
are not followed, they can then be challenged in the
courts. I
hope, on that basis, that the hon. Gentleman will be
happy.
Mr.
Laws: I beg leave to ask leave to withdraw the
amendments.
The
Chairman: You do not have to do that, because we have a
Government amendment before us, which is amendment 313.
Amendment
313 agreed
to. Amendments
made: 314, in clause 64, page 41, line 14,
leave out ‘(“the section 15ZA duty”)’ and
insert ‘, or (b) its duty under
section 18A(1) of that Act (duty to secure provision of enough suitable
education and training for persons subject to youth
detention).’. See
Member’s explanatory statement for amendment
313. Amendment
315, in
clause 64, page 41, line 17, leave
out ‘section 15ZA duty’ and insert ‘duty in
question’.—(Jim
Knight.) This amendment
is consequent on amendment
314. Clause
64, as amended, ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Clauses
65 to 68 ordered to stand part of the
Bill. Ordered,
That further consideration of the Bill be now
adjourned.—(Ms
Butler.) 9.38
pm Adjourned
till Thursday 19 March at Nine
o’clock.
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