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If lawyers were physicists, they would understand that, as with Schrödinger’s cat, where there is uncertainty it is not a question of knowing or not knowing, but a question of knowing that it is both. They could therefore take action under this clause. I rather suspect that lawyers are not physicists, and would say that where it is not known whether a student is fulfilling a duty, the power in Clause 39(1) would not apply.

Lord Adonis: I think that I understand the noble Lord’s point, but let me be clear. His point is that if information under Clause 14(3)(c) was withheld by the student—they did not wish that further information about their engagement in education training to be made available—it would be more difficult for a local authority to take steps under Clause 39.

The less information a local authority has, the less able it will be to take enforcement action; that must be the case. However, it may not be the case that it has

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insufficient information to take steps under Clause 39. For example, we established in our earlier debates that employers should check, when they take on an employee in part-time training, that the training is either being provided by them on an accredited basis or that they have suitable notification from an education and training provider that it is being undertaken. That would be another source of information that would not be directly related to the database and information held on it. While I accept the noble Lord’s point—that if there is less information on the database, a local authority will be less likely to be able to take steps under Clause 39 and the following clauses—it does not follow that they will be unable to take such action; they will have access to other sources of information, such as that provided to them by employers.

Baroness Morris of Bolton: I am grateful that my faith in the Minister’s prophetic powers was not misplaced. I thank him for his answers.

Having listened to the exchange between the Minister and my noble friends, I will read with care the many answers he gave to my questions. We will then see whether we will come back on Report. There is nothing different in how our amendments are drafted from the principles in the Data Protection Act. The purpose of the amendments has been to air a number of concerns. The Minister realises that wherever there is an issue of personal, sensitive data and its protection, people will have concerns, not least the Children’s Rights Alliance.

We have had many debates on the contact point. However, when young people have been widely consulted on professionals involved in their care sharing information, as they were in 2004-05, they have revealed extensive concerns. They think that there may be potential misuse of this information and fear that, far from some of it helping them, they will neither seek the services that they need nor share sensitive information that may help them. For now, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 73 not moved.]

The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Pitkeathley): In calling Amendment No. 74, I must point out that if it is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 75 for reasons of pre-emption.

Baroness Morris of Bolton moved Amendment No. 74:

The noble Baroness said: I wish also to speak to the other amendments in the group standing in my name. This group continues the theme of data protection. The information collected must be used only as strictly required; it should not be used to coerce or bully people. We have included amendments that would prevent an LEA using it to enforce the duty to participate.

Personal details should not be passed to local authorities so that they can become tools of oppression. That might sound overdramatic, but we have heard stories in the media recently—to which the noble

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Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, referred on the previous group of amendments—about the eagerness that some local authorities have shown to use draconian measures to deal with relatively minor infractions. While the reported cases are extreme examples, it is a good idea to state in the Bill what the information collected by local authorities may be used for.

We have sought to limit the use to which such information may be put by introducing amendments that would restrict the supply of information to simply enabling or assisting the provision of,

which, after all, is the ultimate goal of the Bill.

Clause 15 gives the Secretary of State the power to supply social security information about a young person to a local education authority. Clause 16 lists the public bodies that can supply information. Our amendments would ensure that the Secretary of State, or the relevant person, supplied data only if both parties regarded the provision of such information to be proportionate to the aims of the LEA, as defined in the Bill. This would add an extra layer of protection to the sharing of information. I beg to move.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 100 and 109 in this group, which stand in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Walmsley. Amendment No. 100 seeks to add the Border and Immigration Agency to the list in Clause 16(2). Clause 16(1) states:

As we know, the aim is to build up the Connexions database so that it can keep track of young persons in education and training for whom it is responsible.

During the passage of the Children Bill in 2004 we talked at length about the role of the Border and Immigration Agency in relation to young people—often unaccompanied minors—who arrived in this country as asylum seekers. We discussed whose responsibility they were and what happened to them. Given how many immigrants from many countries have arrived in this country over the past few years, among whom are young people crossing our borders and settling in this country, it seems appropriate for the Border and Immigration Agency to be listed among those who supply information so that young people of the relevant age coming from abroad are known about and tracked. If we are requiring young people between the ages of 16 and 18 to attend school or a further education college or to work as an apprentice and have off-the-job training, it should apply as much to those coming in from abroad as to those who are born and grow up in this country. It is necessary that such data are made available to local authorities in order to maintain a fully comprehensive database.

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Amendment No. 109 applies to Clause 17 and is purely probing. It questions who is included as a service “provider”. It refers also to Clause 54(1), which

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is rather vague as to who the service provider is, referring to “such services as it”—the local education authority—

Does that mean just the information exchange between education and training providers, or does it include the wider providers of support services? In particular, does it include PCTs and child and adolescent mental health services? PCTs are, after all, named as one of the partners in Section 10 of the Children Act, and it might be appropriate if PCTs were included here. This is purely a probing amendment. How wide does “service provider” in Clause 17 really go?

Lord Adonis: We enter into further complexity in discussing the amendments in terms of the relationships between different clauses. Continuing the dialogue across groups that has been a feature of our debates so far, I shall add a few remarks to the earlier discussions that we had on the connection that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, raised between the database and any enforcement action that might follow.

I have two further points to supplement the answer that I gave in that respect. If there is less information available to a local authority, it will be less able to act. However, it is not simply the database that acts as one source of information for a local authority, nor is it simply the duty on employers to make checks. The duty on employers is to make checks, not to notify the local authority. The fact that there is that duty on employers to make checks will act as a significant incentive to young people to participate.

There is also the duty in Clause 13 to notify non-compliance on the part of schools and colleges. Clause 13(1)(c) states that,

A whole set of different parts of the Bill come to bear on the issue of sufficient information being made available to local authorities to enable them to act. We are not talking simply about the existence of information on the database, nor simply about the power of the local authority that will impact on young people in ensuring that they take seriously their duty to engage in education or training. As I said, the requirement on employers to make the initial checks when they employ young people will also have a significant impact. In all those respects, the incentives on young people to participate will be there, in the great majority of cases, without enforcement action needing to be provided.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, has tabled Amendments Nos. 74, 85, 93 and 106, which seek to restrict the purpose for which the local authority could request information under Clauses 14, 15, 16 and 17. The amendments would unduly restrict local authorities. To fulfil its duty of promoting effective participation, the local authority will indeed need information on young people to ensure that appropriate careers information is provided to them, as she said. However, it will also need that information to ensure

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that a range of other services are provided appropriately to promote participation in education and training. Her amendments would not allow that to take place as local authorities would also need to ensure that the full range of Connexions services were provided, including, for instance, assessments of learning difficulties, targeted support services and financial support. Local authorities will need to ensure that they are able to take informed decisions on a case-by-case basis about the appropriate next steps for individual young people who are not participating. The amendments would unduly restrict the purposes for which local authorities could use information within their wider responsibility to promote participation in education and training.

Amendments Nos. 75, 82, 86, 90, 94, 104, 107 and 108 relate to the relationship between information provided and enforcing the duty to participate. The noble Baroness’s concern is that information provided will automatically trigger enforcement. I stress that the Bill ensures that it will not be possible for a local authority to undertake enforcement action against a young person unless, first, they have been offered a suitable learning place; secondly, support has been provided that would enable them to participate; thirdly, the young person has had the opportunity to take advantage of that support; and fourthly, they had failed to do so without reasonable excuse as set out in Clause 39, which we have already debated at length.

There is no direct connection between the provision of information, either from the database or from other sources, and enforcement action. Local authorities need to exercise their judgments before taking any action that there is not a reasonable excuse and they must also have gone through these other steps in the process: ensuring that the young person in question has been offered a suitable learning place; that support has been provided that would enable them to participate; and that they had the opportunity to take advantage of that support.

I hope that clarifies the situation as regards the duties on local authorities and how they interact with the provision of information. We shall also give guidance to local authorities on how we expect them to carry out their new duties and powers, including the attendance panel and enforcement functions and what criteria would apply in judging whether it is appropriate for an individual case to reach the point of enforcements. The local authority will decide, on a case-by-case basis, when it is appropriate to go down the route of enforcement. The system will be designed to ensure that each individual is treated fairly and that the full range of their present circumstances is taken into account before any formal action takes place.

Amendments Nos. 87 and 88 concern information sharing. Information sharing between government departments and the Connexions service is not new, as I said in response to an earlier group of amendments. Section 119 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 provides a power to pass the information described in Clause 15 to Connexions and this power is already being used. It is an essential source of basic identification information which serves to populate the Connexions database. Together with other sources, it is fundamental to Connexions being able to track young people effectively,

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and to provide them with appropriate and timely support. Those remarks extend also to Amendments Nos. 96 and 97. The power for public bodies to disclose information to Connexions also already exists under Section 120 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000, which enables professions working in different agencies to tell Connexions when they come across young people who, in their judgment, would benefit from extra support from Connexions services. Those other agencies may come across young people who are not otherwise known to the Connexions service; for example, because they have just moved into the area.

Amendment No. 100 is in this group, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, concerning the Border and Immigration Agency. Would the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, like me to speak to that amendment?

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I spoke to it.

Lord Adonis: It was so long ago I missed the fact that remarks had been made.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I also spoke to Amendment No. 109, although the two amendments cover separate issues.

Lord Adonis: I shall deal with Amendment No. 100 first and then come to Amendment No. 109. Amendment No. 100 adds the Border and Immigration Agency to the public bodies listed under Clause 16, which have the power to supply information about a young person to the local authority for the purposes of its functions under Part 1.

The list in Clauses 16 and 62 reproduces the list from Section 120 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 because we want Connexions to be able to access the same information under Clause 62 as it does under Section 120 of the 2000 Act. The information clauses in Parts 1 and 2 mirror each other to make clear that we do not intend to add to the information that is currently used and disclosed under the relevant sections of the Learning and Skills Act. We want Connexions to have access to exactly the same information that it does now.

It is not clear to us what relevant information the Border and Immigration Agency would provide that we could not obtain elsewhere. A young person moving into an area could equally be picked up by other local services coming into contact with him.

In respect of Amendment No. 109, I assure the noble Baroness that the intention behind the amendment is already implicit in the Bill. The amendment would make explicit that the purposes of the Connexions service should include support and guidance services. This is already the case. Clause 54(1) defines the purpose of the Connexions service as such services as the local authority,

of young people in education or training. That encompasses her objectives. I hope I have covered most of the points raised in the opening remarks.



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Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I shall come back on those amendments before the noble Baroness comes back on the wider issues she raised. The Minister will remember the debates during the passage of the Children Act on the role of the Border and Immigration Agency in providing information about immigrants to this county. He said that local authorities would be able to obtain those data from other sources. It is not clear that they will. If asylum seekers move into an area, they may be picked up by the strategic health authority, the Probation Service or the chief of police but, in some senses, one hopes that they would not necessarily be picked up by those people. In so far as the Border and Immigration Agency has information about where immigrants intend to go initially, it would be useful for that information to be provided.

In relation to Amendment No. 109, as I said when I spoke to it, the wording in Clause 54(1) is not as explicit as it might be. Support and guidance services include not just information and guidance delivered by the Connexions service but also issues in relation to child and adolescent mental health services and other health services, which come under the PCT. Are PCTs included here as service providers?

Lord Adonis: I am not sure about that. I shall have to come back to the noble Baroness about whether PCTs are included. In respect of her question about the Border and Immigration Agency, the advice I have been given is that we do not believe that it would be in a position to provide information that could not be picked up by other local services, but I am happy to go back and ask the question again in the light of her remarks.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: It is not immediately clear that the list of providers of information in Clause 16(2) would necessarily pick up people coming in. They do not have to be asylum seekers. Large numbers of people from eastern Europe have settled in our towns and cities and provide many services, but they bring children with them.

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Lord Adonis: I understand the point that the noble Baroness makes; I will reflect on it further and ask my officials to look again at the issue to see whether there could be any benefit from extending that. We are not against extending the list on principle; as I say, the list was taken from Section 120 of the 2000 Act and we were keen not to be seen to be extending the powers to provide information more widely than absolutely necessary, for all the data protection reasons that we discussed earlier.

Baroness Perry of Southwark: The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, asked the Minister how wide is the definition of a service provider. I am not sure that he answered that part of her question; it is a question that I would especially like to hear the answer to.

Lord Adonis: I have the answer somewhere; but I wanted to have the absolute words in front of me before they arrive in Hansard. In Clause 17, “service provider” refers to Connexions only; it does not include PCTs or CAMs.



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Baroness Morris of Bolton: I am grateful to the Minister for his answer. I thought that he was going to answer the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, in the next group, but he has done it in this group—that was a joke. I thank him for his answer to this group of amendments and, indeed, to previous ones. In reply to his answer on our first group of amendments, the last thing that we would want to do is restrict access for any special needs assessment or financial support; I fully accept what he said in reply to that group.

I am also grateful to the Minister for explaining and reassuring us that there is no direct connection between provision of database information and enforcement, and that the local authority will have to exercise its judgment and go through all the stages that we will come to later on in the Bill. I must say that the more he explains what everyone has to do before we get to compulsion, the more I wonder where all the people are going to come from to do the work.

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