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The noble Baroness also asked when the community impact review will be complete. We are considering the scope of the review now. We hope to have the initial findings out by the end of the year, although we have not scoped it yet. That is the way forward.
The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, asked what has changed since this time last year. I have to be very careful here. I am told off when I say this, but I am afraid that I am going to say it anyway: we are safer than we were 12 months ago. I say that because we have done a lot of very good things—a whole spread of things that I will not mention. We have a great quiver full of arrows that we use, but the threat level is
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My answer to the noble Baroness is that we have achieved things. As I said, I probably should not have said that. I am sure that I will be told off by the media people in government for having done so, but I believe that to be the case. Given the effort made by a resource of very bright, hard-working people across government and in the police force, in SO15 and the agencies, that is only to be expected. Considerable resources have been put in, although the threat level, as I say, is still severe.
All speakers in the debate tonight are aware of the balance of rights. We are all believers in habeas corpus, and we are always balancing this terribly difficult thing—the freedom of the individual, which is so crucial to our nation and for which tens of thousands of people have died throughout our history, and the right of our population to live their lives normally as they are entitled to do. That is a very important right, too. We must balance these things, but it is not easy. There is no easy equation in a democracy to do that, but those are absolutely the right things.
On the question of taking people through the judicial process and convicting them, it is interesting that, so far in 2008, 32 people have been convicted in 10 significant terrorist cases. Of those 32, 11 pleaded guilty. We are not going far wrong in identifying people by intelligence, getting the evidence and taking them to trial. In 2007, 36 individuals were convicted in 14 significant terrorist cases, of whom 21 pleaded guilty. That is really quite an achievement.
The more we do this, the more we can get across to people—to the Muslim community—that there is a real risk and that we are trying to do things properly. That is the right way of doing things, but at times it is extremely difficult because, as I say, we have to move quickly. Some of the things that these people wish to do are just horrifying. They want to cause mass casualties among innocent people. Therefore we have to act quickly, and we have to act earlier than one would like to in collecting evidence. That is just a fact of life. I would never want to be in the position in which, because we have adjusted things, the Security Service and particularly the police say, “Let’s just leave it for a couple more days because we want to get that evidence”. If something happened in that couple of days that killed hundreds of our people, I would find that very difficult to live with. That is one of the real problems.
My noble friend Lord Judd made some very important points. We read very carefully what the Joint Committee on Human Rights says, and what it says is very important.
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I have said on the Floor of the House that the report of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, was not published far enough in advance. The Home Office received it on 15 June, and we published it on 23 June. That is not good enough, and we need to do better. People need to be allowed to look at it so that they can make the correct comments. We are aware of that and we must do better. We are working with the independent reviewer to ensure that these reports are published in good time in the future. The role of the independent reviewer is set out in statute, and it is open to Members of this House to propose amendments to the Counter-Terrorism Bill if they want to change it. That could easily be done.
On the judicial process and the judiciary, perhaps I am wrong in this, but I have immense faith in our judges. Having seen one of these processes at Paddington Green, I was impressed by the rigour of what went on. Perhaps it is not absolutely perfect, but my goodness, the judge went into great detail; people there were defending while others in a sense were prosecutors, and all the intelligence and other evidence was looked at. It was a thorough scrutiny. One could debate the issue at length, but overall the system is good and serves as a protection for people in this position—and we are talking about a very small number where there is a lot of intelligence that can be used against them. But, of course, intelligence is not evidence.
8 pm
Lord Judd: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. He has emphasised how far the system goes to try to ensure fair play. When I was still serving on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, we visited Paddington Green and looked at where these proceedings are conducted. It is fair to say that none of us had realised before that sometimes the judge is not present in the room in which the proceedings are taking place, but is in video contact with it. However, the people carrying out the interrogation are sitting in the room. Can my noble friend give an assurance that that practice does not continue? I cannot speak for the committee as a whole, but I for one did not find it convincing when we were told by the police, first, that anyone who wants to go before the judge in his chambers or elsewhere could do so, and secondly, that transporting a defendant to a judge’s chambers creates a huge disruption to London traffic. That is hardly a convincing case for departing from the normal expectations in the administration of justice. It would be helpful if I could be reassured that this matter has been seriously addressed.
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, perhaps I may respond to my noble friend in writing on that point because I am not sure of the exact position.
My noble friend Lord Harris was absolutely right to make the point that this should be used sparingly. I have talked about the cyclical nature of the threat in the sense that if you manage to unwind a complicated plot, it takes time for these things to be built up again
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Overall, it is clear that this House understands what kind of threat we face, and that it is very different from that posed by the IRA. This is a threat to our way of life made by people who do not mind dying themselves and who wish to cause mass innocent casualties. That is a very different thing and has to be taken extremely seriously. As I said, I know that we hold different views about exactly how it should be done, but we share the belief that in the final analysis we have to protect and look after our people. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.25 pm.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 8.04 to 8.25 pm.]
Education and Skills Bill
Clause 10 [Local education authority to promote fulfilment of duty imposed by section 2]:
[Amendments Nos. 51 and 52 not moved.]
Baroness Sharp of Guildford moved Amendment No. 53:
“( ) The duty in subsection (1) applies to all such persons who are under the supervision of the local authority youth offending team, including those in custody.”
The noble Baroness said: We now move with this group of amendments to Clause 10, which imposes a duty on local authorities to implement the main requirements of the Bill. Theirs is the responsibility to identify and chase up all those young people aged 16 and 17 who are not in school or in college, or in work with training, and to ensure that they are either in a job which includes the requisite training element or that they are helped to get back into education or a job with training. Theirs is the responsibility to find the mentors to counsel these young people with complex needs and to act as their advocates if they stray from the designated path. Theirs, too, is the responsibility to set up the individualised learning programmes to suit the needs of these young people.
Amendment No. 53 reminds local authorities that they also have the responsibility to look to the education and training needs of young people who are in the care of youth offending teams or in custody. During the passage through this House of the Children and Young Persons Bill earlier this year, we had much
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Equally, there was on the part of many noble Lords some scepticism about the degree to which local authorities had the capacity to meet these requirements; that on many occasions they rather conspicuously failed to deliver on their duties towards looked-after children and others with complex social and educational needs. This is where Amendments Nos. 58 and 65 come in. Local authorities do not deliver on their duties because often they do not have the resources to do so. Amendment No. 58 expressly concerns resources. Money for schools is now directly mandated by the Treasury and ring-fenced for this purpose in local authority budgets—the term is “passported directly to the schools”. Presumably this will also be true of the further education colleges once the LSC has been abolished. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that the 16 to 19 element of funding, which currently comes through the LSC, will be part of the schools’ budgets and meet the same rules of being passported through. The division of these sums between schools is now the job of the schools forums. Amendment No. 58 reminds those forums of the new responsibilities which fall on local authorities.
8.30 pm
Amendment No. 65 adds the words “and reasonable” to the caveats in Clause 12. Local authorities do not have infinite resources. The cost of pursuing young people who are supposedly in their area of responsibility possibly to all parts of the planet is just not feasible. What is possible may carry a totally unacceptable cost to the taxpayer.
Amendments Nos. 57 and 67 put the onus on the local authorities to establish whether the young person has special educational needs which need to be addressed. Amendment No. 67 had been proposed to us by TreeHouse and the National Autistic Society. In their briefing, they remind us that autism is a complex condition that affects one in 100 school-age children. Children with autism represent 16.2 per cent of the children with statements of special educational needs. There are many barriers faced by young people with autism and their families in the current education system. More than 40 per cent of children with autism are bullied at school. Statistics on exclusion rates from school further indicate the problems faced: 27 per cent of children with autism have been excluded from school, a quarter of them on more than one occasion. Pupils with special educational needs are nine times more likely to be permanently excluded from school than the rest of the school population. In the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of pupils with special educational needs on fixed-period exclusions.
Despite these shockingly poor indicators of the experiences of children with autism, education is accepted as the best intervention. It is essential that the existing
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This is why we are putting forward Amendment No. 67. I remind noble Lords that Clause 12 is headed,
“A local education authority in England must make arrangements to enable it to establish (so far as it is possible to do so) the identities of persons belonging to its area to whom this Part applies but who are failing to fulfil the duty imposed by section 2”.
Baroness Verma: Our amendments in this group complement those of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. Clause 10 establishes the duty on local education authorities to promote the participation of young people in education or training in their area who are subject to the duty to participate. We of course do not wish those young people to be under a duty, so have tabled amendments with alternative wordings.
Our problem with Clause 10 is the apparent imbalance between the responsibilities of young people to comply with the obligations established by the Bill and the much looser duties placed on local authorities. These concerns have been raised in another place and by the Special Educational Consortium. As currently drafted the Bill imposes sanctions which can include criminal penalties for individual pupils who are not in appropriate full-time education or training, but imposes only a general duty through Clause 10 on LEAs to promote participation in such education or training.
Young people can benefit from the Bill only if a range of appropriate, high-quality provision is available to them. The duty set out in this amendment is intended to rebalance those responsibilities. It would place an explicit duty on LEAs to secure sufficient and appropriate provision for their population of 16 to 18 year-olds. Currently, responsibility for provision for 16 to 18 year-olds rests with the Learning and Skills Council. When responsibility is transferred to local authorities, a stronger duty should be imposed. As my colleague John Hayes said on this subject in another place,
- “the more insistent that we can be and the Bill can be on these matters, the better. We must not be found wanting in any way, shape or form when it comes to people who are the most challenged”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/2/08; col. 446.]
I wholeheartedly agree with him.
Amendment No. 58 was inspired by the National Union of Teachers. We share its concerns that local authorities might not take into account all the changes that the Bill makes. There will be an increase in the number of pupils staying on at school to complete A-levels. The amendment would require local authorities to have regard to the duties imposed on schools by this
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The Liberal Democrats have tabled Amendment No. 67, which would identify the failing with reference to any special educational needs. I entirely endorse that. It is deeply worrying that many young people who are labelled as disruptive, or who are falling behind, actually have special needs that simply are not being picked up. There must be protection written into the Bill so that those who are left behind because they have special needs are not then penalised because nothing has been done to identify their problem and to help them.
Amendment No. 110 would ensure that if the Secretary of State issued guidance to local authorities, that guidance would be placed in the House of Commons Library. I am sure that the Government will have no problem accepting this straightforward accountability measure.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote: I support Amendment No. 50, which I believe is about coping with educational needs in prison. My noble friend Lord Ramsbotham made a strong case for that. Incidentally, I hope that the Minister will reaffirm that apprenticeships could begin to take root in prison and not have to wait until the individual was discharged from prison. I also put my name to the amendment—
Lord Elton: Before the noble Baroness moves on from that amendment, it should be mentioned for the record that she is speaking to Amendment No. 53, not No. 50.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote: I am most grateful. I was looking at something else.
I have also put my name to the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, opposing the Question that Clause 10 shall stand part of the Bill. Perhaps your Lordships know that the noble Lord cannot be here today because he has had an attack of viral bronchitis. However, on Report he very much wants to object to the clause remaining in the Bill, and I hope that that will be accepted. His view is that this is not the right time to be placing this requirement on local authorities. There will be no duty on them for a number of years, but there will be a duty, and he is keen that it should be quite firm, on local authorities to provide the facilities when the funding is transferred to them from the Learning and Skills Council. That is his view, and I hope it will be acceptable if he makes that case rather more specifically when he returns to your Lordships’ House.
I particularly support what has already been said about the special needs of children who have been failed by the educational system and have failed within it, and who have not really had their needs addressed. The whole point of these various amendments, which have already been spoken to, is that they will require local authorities to take a much stronger line on this and to have a specific duty to fulfil those needs. I totally support what is being said.
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Lord Elton: I support the principle of paying particular attention to those with special educational needs and, as I said at Second Reading, their early diagnosis, which this amendment does not directly address. I hope that we will get round to that later.
I cannot escape mentioning the way in which Amendment No. 53, by referring to those in custody, puts its finger on the supreme irony of a system which compels people to do something when they have very little freedom of choice and where the ultimate sanction is that they go into custody. There is a certain Alice in Wonderland dimension to that. We will return on Report to the question of compulsion and perhaps it is better to reserve anything else that needs to be said on that until then, but I cannot help looking at this sad picture of the person already in prison compelled to complete a duty which he cannot possibly do unless everybody else does their job of providing him with the means to do it and the threat of imprisoning him if he does not.
Lord Lucas: I want to say a word in favour of Amendment No. 65. First, as a wording technicality, requiring a local authority to do everything that is “possible” is really putting no limit on things. Local authorities would be compelled to employ private investigators to chase children round the world to establish where they were, and children can be extremely good at getting lost under those circumstances. So “reasonable” does seem to be the right word in practical terms.
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