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We will, however, provide employers with clear and simple guidance about what they need to look for in a letter of confirmation shown to them by a young person whom they want to employ, to see that the duties on employers are not unduly onerous—for the reasons set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden. We will involve employers in developing that guidance and consult them on it, so that it meets their needs. Employers will not be expected to contact a learning provider to check that a young person is enrolled although, if they wish to do so, or to discuss the detail of the course that the young person is undertaking, the contact details would normally be found on a letter from the provider.

I hope that that deals with the issues raised, but this is quite a disparate group of amendments and I may have missed something. I will be happy to respond.

Baroness Walmsley: Can the Minister clarify one thing? On one hand, he tells my noble friend Lady Garden that it is not reasonable to take away the employer's duty to check at all; but on the other, he tells the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, that the Government do not intend that employers should spend a lot of time satisfying themselves that the education and training arrangements that the young person has made fulfil the duty by including enough hours, because that would take them too long. I certainly agree with that approach. Can the Minister explain what the word “appropriate” in Clause 21 means? He suggests that the employer must be satisfied that all such steps as are reasonable have been taken by the young person to make,

If appropriate does not mean, “such arrangements as to fulfil the duty to participate”, what does it mean?

Lord Adonis: The Explanatory Notes are quite clear on what Clause 21 encompasses. They say:

As I said earlier, we want those letters to be in a standard format so that they are easy for employers to use. The Explanatory Notes continue:

Baroness Walmsley: In that case, what on earth is the point of it? If the employer is not to check whether the young person has taken full responsibility to fulfil their duty to participate, what is the point of checking at all? The young person might just have enrolled on some embroidery class for an hour a week. The clause does not do the job. It would take employers far too much time to check properly, which is why we on these Benches suggest that there is no point to Clause 21.



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Lord Adonis: As so often, I find myself holding a sensible middle ground between two extreme positions—in this case, positions that have been taken up by the two parties opposite. I have the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, saying that there should be no duties on employers, and the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, saying that there should be enhanced duties on employers, who should now have to check the precise number of hours. It is reasonable that there is a duty to check that the young person is engaged, or has made arrangements to be engaged, in education or training.

As I said earlier, the very fact that that requirement is in place—it is a perfectly plausible proposition—will be a significant incentive for young people, because they will know that employers are expected to check that they have made arrangements to engage in education or training. However, we do not want to specify the nature of those checks in excessive detail. In very many cases, it is quite likely that the letters that are produced by the learning providers will specify the number of hours. We are talking about the statutory minimum requirements on employers, and a requirement that they should make a check, which will be a significant incentive for the young person, is a reasonable step in the circumstances. There is a balance of duties on employers, on young people, and, as we discussed earlier, on local authorities, but we do not want to go down the Conservative road of overregulating employers by requiring them to have to check the precise number of hours in all cases.

Lord Elton: I am a bit confused about who checks on what. The reciprocal duty to see that the educational part of the sandwich is provided rests on the education authority, not on the educational institution that the young person attends. Am I right? Did I gather from the previous debate about the duties of local education authorities that it is down to them to ensure that the young person is fulfilling both halves of their contract?

Lord Adonis: There are two distinct aspects to this. Enforcement action against a young person who is not participating in education and training as required under the Bill lies with the officers of the local authority. However, there is duty on employers to check whether those whom they are employing are engaged in education or training. The enforcement against them if they are not so engaged lies with the local authority, not with the employer.

Lord Elton: If this is going to work, presumably someone must keep a register—that is what it would be in a school—or record of attendance at the place of education. Is it up to that institution to blow the whistle and tell the local authority that someone is truanting, as we used to call it, and is not taking the course?

Lord Adonis: In practice these duties will lie mainly with Connexions officers who will keep the records. But those who have information about failure to comply with the law will have a duty to make it known.

Lord Elton: Would the institution inform the Connexions officer?



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Lord Adonis: Or the local authority, which would see that it is passed to the relevant officers of the authority. That is because the Connexions officers will be employed by the local authority as Connexions moves to local authorities.

Baroness Verma: Perhaps I may help the Minister. Would it be easier if the college were to incorporate my amendment in its letter so that the details of the course the student has enrolled on are passed to the employer? The onus will then be on the college to report back to the employer if the student is not actually attending.

Picking up on the Minister’s comment about the word “sufficient”, my amendment seeks to ensure that the training being undertaken by the young person is sufficient to meet the needs of the employer and that it is purposeful. The student should not be there just for the sake of undergoing training.

Lord Adonis: I shall reflect on the noble Baroness’s remarks in respect of the letters that can be provided by colleges. Obviously if they were to provide this information, it would make it immediately apparent to employers whether the full range of obligations were being met by the young people in question. However, our concern is to keep the burden on employers to a minimum, and the judgment we have made sensibly holds to the middle ground on the issue: it is a requirement to check that young people are engaged in or have appropriate arrangements in place to be engaged in education or training. That is a sensible step. Actually to require them to ascertain the number of hours would be a step too far.

Lord Lucas: I shall start by asking the Minister a couple of questions on side issues. The first is a question I put to him earlier but did not get a reply to. What does it mean for a young person to “belong to” a local authority? In my experience, teenagers are rather like cats. However much you feed and house them, they do not reckon they belong to anybody.

Lord Adonis: It means “reside in”. Of course, like other people, they may move to a different authority, and in that event they would belong to the new authority.

Lord Lucas: Secondly, do education providers have permission, as it were, under data protection legislation to reveal to an employer what course a young person has booked on or is engaged in? Revealing that sort of thing is becoming extremely tricky, I believe.

Lord Adonis: Yes, provided that they have the consent of the young person to do so. But since the young person will be the bearer of the certificate or letter, one assumes that that consent is implicit.

Lord Lucas: I come back to the duty under Clause 21. The duty is to take all such steps as are reasonable to ascertain that the person has made appropriate arrangements for training or education. If a lawyer was looking for a meaning for the term “appropriate”,

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he would go back to Clause 4 to see what “appropriate” education might mean, and that is getting quite deeply into the detail of what this education consists of. I can see why the noble Lord does not want to call it “arrangements for education” because as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, that might be basket weaving for an hour a week. But the use of “appropriate” is to ask for quite deep judgments to be made in much the way that the word is used in Clause 4. The noble Lord says that, in practice, this will be written much more lightly in the guidance. So it may be—it would be onerous if it was not—but, nevertheless, that is not the way in which the wording will be read.

9.45 pm

Lord Adonis: The noble Lord is right to probe this further. As the word “appropriate” is now on everyone’s mind, I should point out that it is defined in Clause 20, which sets out what the appropriate arrangements are. It states:

Lord Lucas: Perhaps the noble Lord can also point me to the meaning of “relevant” in this. Again the noble Lord is asking for extensive judgments to be made unless that is defined somewhere else in this context. What is “relevant”? Relevant to what?

Lord Adonis: Relevant to fulfilling their duties under the Bill.

Lord Lucas: I am trying to find which particular use of the word “relevant” applies. I shall take the matter away and have a look at it. Each time the Minister uses one of these words, he is asking for a judgment.

Lord Adonis: “Relevant” in Clause 6 means,

that is, training or education which enables them to fulfil their duties under the Bill.

Lord Lucas: If we are looking only at that, it can be basket weaving as long as it is accredited; it need not be anything which constitutes the duty of 280 hours of guided learning. So there is no check-up on that process happening there. If it is that light, any accredited course will do. It does not say that it has to be an accredited course which fulfils the 280-hours duty. So we come back again to my suggestion that there should be some kind of document. If we are to have a letter from an education provider anyway, we may as well say what that letter should contain—that it should provide contact details; that it should involve giving permission for conversation; and that it should say that the training satisfies the 280 hours the duty requires. It is a simple thing to require an education provider to do and seems the easiest way of getting round the problem. I shall not chase the Minister further at the moment.



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Lord Adonis: As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, I shall look further at what more we can say about a standard format for these letters and I will write to the noble Lord setting that out. That may meet many of the concerns that have been raised, including the question which started these discussions of how credible it is for employers to undertake these checks in a short period of time.

Lord Lucas: If we have guidance to employers on how to make this check which is longer than two sides of A4, it will start to make difficulties because people do not have the time to take that kind of information on board. They are not like schools, which enjoy dealing with 100 pages of government regulations every Monday morning. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Elton moved Amendment No. 61:

The noble Lord said: I gather that there is a scintilla of time in which to examine my humble offering. The amendment is a kite with a long string. It is within the terms of the Long Title of the Bill but it does not address the young people in the age group with which the Bill is concerned; it considers the condition of young people as they arrive in that age group. That condition is determined by the state of the compulsory education system as it now is. I think we all agree that there is in it a deep malaise, which is reflected in what is happening on our streets and in our society.

In seeking to consider this in the context of the Bill, with the indulgence of the House, because I think it is important and relevant, I sought to find one aspect of the legislation which could be used to address a central issue. What is too often wrong with the schools preparing these people for this stage in their education is that they are disorderly. There is bad behaviour in classes, which disrupts the teaching. There is disregard for authority, which leads to rebellion. I regret to say that in a number of schools a number of children feel safer on the street in a gang than they do either at home or in school. I have heard that said in some parts of south London.

What can be done to stabilise this circumstance and how can central government do anything to achieve that? I regard legislation as the last resort. As I say, this amendment is a kite rather than a substantive proposal. In inquiries that I helped to conduct many

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years ago, under circumstances which were quite appropriate to make them relevant to this day, in visits to a large number of schools in this country and a number in other countries we found that one of the best ways to secure a policy of behaviour among school children conducive to their learning in the classroom as well as their good conduct outside the school was to involve them in the management of the school discipline policy. We advised head teachers in particular and staff generally to involve the children in questions of discipline.

One of the most convenient forums for this is a school council where matters of discipline naturally come up quite quickly for discussion between the pupils and staff. They must recognise that as effective and not merely a bit of window-dressing—nothing is more damaging than a token school council where the teachers appear to pay attention and do the opposite. It should be a school council in which teachers and children together work out what minimal rules of behaviour will effectively enable the security of the children, the stability of the environment and the process of learning. Different schools, localities and cultures require different approaches. That is why any legislation should be as general and permissive as possible. I have intentionally said the Secretary of State “may” rather than “shall” issue guidelines in relation to this.

To what extent is the Minister’s department aware of the way maintained schools generally deal with the whole school discipline policy? Where do they think it is going wrong and why? I beg to move.

Baroness Walmsley: We have Amendment No. 69 in the group. We agree with the objective of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, but noble Lords will notice that there are a number of differences between his amendment and ours. In particular, ours is flawed and his is not, necessarily. We are of course aware that schools no longer have to provide a yearly report to parents, much though we perhaps wish that they should.

We did not simply add our names to the noble Lord’s amendment because his refers only to schools. Given that many of the young people at whom this Bill is aimed will not be studying at schools, our amendment talks of “educational institutions”. Some kind of democratically elected mechanism to provide the management of the school with the voice of the students is just as relevant and appropriate in FE as it is in schools. We would like to see something like the noble Lord’s amendment in the Bill but referring to educational institutions as a whole and not just schools.

We also hesitated to be too prescriptive about the way in which the voice of the students should be collected, although I am encouraged by the wording in the noble Lord’s amendment, “or other collective mechanism”. We devised our own amendment that did not specify a school council because we did not want to be too prescriptive; we wanted to give schools the opportunity to be creative and respond appropriately to their own circumstances, devising their own ways of gathering students’ views, and to put pressure on them to do so by giving them a duty to report on it. We felt that the most appropriate people to report to would be

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the parents and the local authority. In doing so, of course, they would report to their own students and would be accountable to them as to how they were reflecting their views. The elements that we believe are the most important are that we are not too prescriptive, that the voice of the student should be collected in a democratic and appropriate way and that the matter should apply not just to schools but to other educational institutions to which the young people of the age group we are referring to might go.

Baroness Morris of Bolton: As my noble friend Lord Elton has explained, the proposed new clauses would create a statutory right for pupils to participate in decisions that affect them by introducing a new duty on schools to have due regard to the views of pupils and for each school to have a school council or another form of collective mechanism.

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