Education and Skills Bill

Public Bill Committee, 31 January 2008.

Clause 1

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, at end insert ‘; and

(d) who agrees in writing, on ceasing to be of compulsory school age, that it applies.’.

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Bercow; and I welcome your co-Chairman, Mr. Bayley, who will preside over our next sitting. May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship? I am sure that you will be objective and occasionally indulgent to members of the Committee. You have a high regard for parliamentary procedure, so it will be real pleasure to work under your chairmanship.

I also welcome the Minister for Schools and Learners and the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy) to the Committee. May I say how warming it is to see Ministers from two Departments sharing the Bill, especially as it is the first Bill to be dealt with by Departments that were once together? No sooner have they been separated than they are working together again.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Joined-up government.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Exactly—split them up, and then join them together again.

I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire, and the Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster. I also welcome the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Bristol, West. My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) said on Second Reading:

“We believe that getting more young people to participate fruitfully in education for longer—and not just to age 18—is an unalloyed good.”—[Official Report, 14 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 669.]

However, we have some concerns about compulsion, and about the danger of criminalising young people who have been let down by the education system—those who, at 11, fail to reach level 4 in English. Alison Wolf said in a recent paper that one of the best-established findings in educational research is that children who are behind when they leave primary school find it almost impossible to catch up. She went on to say that with very few exceptions children who perform well at age 11 do not figure as NEETs—not in education, employment or training—at age 17 or 18.

The Green Paper, “Raising Expectations: staying in education and training post-16”, makes a similar point:

“Those achieving less than five G grades at GCSE are six times as likely to drop out at 16 than those who achieve five or more A*-C grades.”

We do not believe that is right to criminalise the very children whom our schools have let down. We do not believe that it is right to subject them to monitoring by local authorities, with their educational, health and police records being sent to local authorities, and sensitive information being shared around as though it were Army recruitment information.

We share the same goal as the Government on the importance of raising participation, but we hope to demonstrate to the Committee that it is best achieved with the carrot of centres and better education in primary and secondary school, rather than the stick of penalties and sanctions. Amendment No. 1 attempts to draw out from the Government an answer to the question of whether compulsion will achieve the objectives set by Ministers to increase the proportion of 16 and 17-year-olds in education or training. Raising participation is an important objective, and it is one that the Opposition share. Indeed, the regulatory impact assessment states:

“In England...77 per cent. of 17 year olds participate in education or work-based learning.”

That puts England 19th in the table of participation produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—below Belgium, France, Germany, the United States and Australia, and below the OECD average. It is clear that there are huge benefits for the individual from longer participation in education.

The Green Paper states:

“People with five or more good GCSEs earn on average around £100,000 more over their lifetime than those who leave learning with qualifications below level 2.”

It goes on to say:

“Those who participate are less likely to experience teenage pregnancy, be involved in crime or behave anti-socially.”

It also states:

“Those who participate are more likely to be healthy”.

I am not entirely convinced of the causal link to teenage pregnancy; participation rates have been rising in recent years, and so have teenage pregnancies.

The point about the importance of staying on in education and training is well made, and we agree with it. It is good for the individual, and it is important for the United Kingdom’s economy. The Green Paper cites a report by O’Mahoney and de Boer that shows that

“up to one fifth of the UK’s output per hour productivity gap with Germany...results from the UK’s relatively poor skills.”

The Green Paper goes on to say:

“And in relation to literacy, for example, a study has found that if a country’s literacy scores rise by 1 per cent. relative to the international average, a 2.5 per cent. relative rise in labour productivity and a 1.5 per cent. rise in GDP per head can be expected.”

It notes that the key driving force behind the Bill and clause 1 is the move to raise participation by compulsion and, therefore, to raise not only the general level of technical skills, but basic skills, such as literacy and maths. In that respect, my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire has performed a valuable service to the Committee in his dogged pursuit of the issues of literacy and numeracy in our evidence sessions.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

It is relentless, too.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings to the Committee.

The essence of the Government’s case for compulsion is that disaffection with school among a significant minority of students has left the country with a lamentable participation rate, particularly in relation to other developed nations. Their way of tackling the problem is to use the law to compel 16 and 17-year-olds to remain in education or training, albeit accompanied by ways of increasing their opportunities. However, the research commissioned by the Government from the National Foundation for Education Research concluded:

“There was little or no direct evidence of the likely impact of introducing a system of compulsory education or training to the age of 18; in many cases change had only recently been introduced, and it was as yet too early to find evidence of impact.”

When I asked the Minister why the Government had proceeded with compulsion, given the conclusions of the research that they had commissioned, he simply resorted to listing the advantages of higher participation rates, which we would, of course, all accept. The issue, however, is how we get there.

Jon Coles, the Minister’s civil servant, who bravely came to his rescue, conceded that the research had reached the conclusions that I outlined, but gave the excuse that there was a lack of direct precedents. The nearest example that the Government provided was the raising of the school leaving age, but that was not a matter of compulsory training. As page 3 of the research commissioned by the Government says:

“There is substantial evidence that participation in education and training leads to higher wages...but studies relate to raising the school-leaving age, or (in a few cases) to voluntary participation in vocational training”—

the subject of the studies on which the Government’s research was based. The report continues:

“it cannot be assumed that the proposed requirement to participate in education or training to 18 would necessarily have the same impact.”

It concludes:

“vocational qualifications do not yield the same economic benefits as academic qualifications”.

Conservative Members believe in good-quality vocational education, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings has been exemplary in his espousal of it. We also believe that young people leaving school, whether at 16 or 18, should have a good general knowledge, and research shows a direct correlation between an individual’s general knowledge and their income.

The Government believe that compulsion will help to tackle the problem, but they are seeking to tackle the symptoms of the problem of low participation rates, not the cause. We should be asking why 16 and 17-year-olds are so disaffected with education—more so than youngsters in France and Belgium. The fundamental reason is the quality of education that many of them receive in their 11 or 12 years of compulsory schooling.

Ofsted complains that 49 per cent. of secondary schools are not good enough, and 17 per cent. of 11-year-olds leave primary school without reaching level 4 in reading, while 46 per cent. leave without reaching level 4 in reading, writing and maths combined. That group is among the 41 per cent. who fail to achieve five or more grade A* to C GCSEs, and it is also among those who fail to achieve five or more GCSEs, including in English and Maths. Of course they are disaffected, because nothing demoralises a person more than being unable to do something that they are supposed to be able to do.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire has wisely pointed out, it goes back to literacy. Reading is a low-level skill—children with a very low IQ are perfectly capable of learning to read fluently—but the look-and-say approach to reading is not appropriate for children of low ability. It involves exposing children to words, and it requires them to repeat those words until they recognise them on sight, much as we do when we see words that we have read 10,000 times. The method can work for bright children, particularly if they have supportive parents or are among the one in four children who has a private tutor in addition to school.

Look-and-say has been around for a long time; it was introduced in the 1950s, and reached its peak in the mid-1980s, which is why, when the Conservatives left office in 1997, only 56 per cent. of 11-year-olds reached level 4 in English. In 1998, a study of 300 primary school children was begun in Clackmannanshire by two academic psychologists, Rhona Johnston and Joyce Watson. The children were divided into three groups. The psychologists found that the 100 children who took a synthetic phonics programme in the first 16 weeks of schooling had a reading age seven months ahead of their chronological age, and seven months ahead of children in the other two groups. Synthetic phonics was so successful that they put all 300 pupils on to the programme. The 300 children were followed for seven years, by the end of which period they had a reading age three and a half years ahead of their chronological age—they had a reading age of 14 and a half at age 11.

Synthetic phonics is about teaching children in the first weeks of school all 44 sounds of the alphabet, and how to blend them into words, so d-o-g is dog and c-a-t is cat. It works. Children who are in schools that use the method read simple words almost straight away, and key stage 2 results are invariably in the mid-90s, with very high proportions of level 5. I raise the issue, because it goes to the root of what the Government are trying to achieve by increasing participation. It is at the root of disaffection and the country’s skills shortage, particularly the shortage of basic skills about which employers complain, so it goes to the root of whether compulsion will achieve the Government’s objectives. I raise the issue now—I beg a little indulgence—so that I do not have to keep raising it later.

Tom Wilson of the TUC, in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire during our evidence sessions, said:

“A lot of working people feel very angry that the system has let them down and that they have gone through 10 years of school and emerged unable to read or write.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 52, Q132.]

Reading is a low-level skill, as I said, but it has simply not been taught properly to generations of children in this country. The look-and-say method is like expecting someone to be able to play the piano after hearing Mozart over and over while looking at the sheet music. People learn to play the piano by learning the notes and by practising scales and finger movements—it is laborious, but there is no other way. Phonics is the same, but children love to learn to read by that method, because they can genuinely read—they do not pretend to read a passage after memorising it.

“Newsnight” filmed the Britannia Village primary school in east London when the head teacher brought in Ruth Miskin to transform the way in which reading was taught. One girl of nine could not read at all after four years at the school, and she knew that she could not read. A boy of eight was perpetually in trouble for poor behaviour—he could not read either. After a few months of synthetic phonics, both children could read, and both were transformed into happy, achieving children. The boy’s poor behaviour stopped, to the delight of his mother. That suggests what the root cause of disaffection is.

There are similar issues in maths teaching. Ideological obsession means that children are not taught straightforward, formulaic approaches to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I hope that the Williams review that the Government have commissioned will achieve for maths what the Rose review achieved for reading. If we can get those things right in our primary schools, we should see participation rates rise without the need for compulsion. It is an intellectual battle that the Government have still not won, despite the fact that they have changed the law requiring schools to use synthetic phonics. There is no research to show that look-and-say is the most effective method of teaching children to read. A multi-million-dollar research project by the National Reading Panel in the US concluded that synthetic phonics is by far the most effective method, particularly for children from lower socio-economic groups and ethnic minorities. However, Mick Brookes of the National Association of Head Teachers—I get on well with him on most issues, but disagree with him on this—said:

“To say that look and say is not a tactic to be used in schools defies the knowledge that we have about how children learn.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 24 January 2008; c. 134, Q319.]

I visited a primary school recently—I shall not say where—that changed to synthetic phonics two years ago. The children’s reading was transformed. The head became a convert, but when he discussed it with other local heads, some said, “I am opposed to synthetic phonics on ideological grounds.” Therein lies the Government’s problem: how to eschew ideology and replace it with what works.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

My hon. Friend was explaining that there were objections on ideological grounds. I am a bit surprised. What sort of ideology was it?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

My hon. Friend is right, and I shall turn to that. I know that I am trying your patience, Mr. Bercow, so I shall quickly reach the end of this line of argument.

Michael Barber, who was the head of Tony Blair’s delivery unit in No. 10 from 2001 to 2005, in his excellent book, “Instruction to Deliver”, wrote on page 187:

“Most troubling of all was evidence that the training of headteachers by the NCSL”—

the National College for School Leadership—

“for the Consultant Leaders’ Programme had given little attention to literacy and numeracy”.

This was written in about 2004—it does not go back to 1997. Michael Barber went to write that

“Indeed, we had evidence that some of the trainers on the course had even made explicit the view that focusing on literacy and numeracy was actually wrong. My faith in the NCSL, and in the departmental officials...was shaken.”

That ideology also permeates secondary education. The obsession with mixed-ability teaching damages children of all abilities, but the least able are damaged the most, sitting in lessons that they cannot understand, humiliated on an hourly basis. No wonder they become disaffected. Some 60 per cent. of academic lessons take place in mixed-ability classes, including 50 per cent. of English lessons and 75 per cent. of history and geography lessons.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman that there is an important role for setting, but he mentions history and geography, for example, which are optional subjects at key stage 4. If a school had only 20 or 30 pupils taking those subjects, would he still advocate setting them? If so, how would he resource the extra cost?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

That is a valid intervention. I have never advocated setting when there are only 30 children. Setting takes the most able children in a subject and puts them in one class. If there are 60 children, there should be two classes of separate ability levels. In fact, the statistic that three quarters of history lessons take place in mixed-ability classes applies also to the first three years of secondary education. There is a long way to go to get setting into our secondary schools without worrying about low numbers. Of course, if there is a low number of children, they have to be in one class.

Nia Griffith (Labour, Llanelli)

I should like to know where the hon. Gentleman gets his figures from. As a former school inspector, I have always found that schools have an enormous variety of imaginative ways of dividing up pupils, depending on whether the subject is art, history or English. There are many forms of setting, and I am sceptical about those figures. I should like to some explanation of how the hon. Gentleman would work the system in small rural schools. Would he prefer fewer options for pupils at 14 so that they can be set more finely?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Those figures come from parliamentary answers provided by Ofsted which, until recently, recorded whether the lessons that they inspected were in sets or mixed-ability classes. They were certainly accurate up to 2005-06, although it has been difficult to get figures beyond that because they are mixed in with banding. In rural schools, it is possible to set every academic lesson, even in a small school of 800 or so pupils, if the timetable is suitably blocked. I went to a school in Milton Keynes that had an expert timetabler—the deputy head—who said that it is possible in any school to set every academic lesson if people know how to timetable properly.

Nia Griffith (Labour, Llanelli)

I do not dispute the fact. I was a timetabler myself, and I have seen many different forms of timetabling as well as mixed systems, in which there can be banding in one subject, setting in another and mixed-ability teaching in another, which, for subjects such as PE, may be much more appropriate. However, the fact remains that if a school wants to offer a subject such as German or music and does not want to confine that subject to the most able pupils, it inevitably ends up with a mixed-ability group, and often the results in such groups depend more on the enthusiasm of the teacher and the materials used than on the pupils’ abilities at the beginning. I do not question the value of setting, which has its place, but there are many approaches, and simply to shower criticism on one seems inappropriate.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Order. Perhaps at this stage I can assist the Committee by making a number of observations. First, it is fairly customary at the outset of clause-by-clause, line-by-line consideration to allow a certain latitude as the initial amendments are proposed and debated. I hope that hon. Members agree that I have shown such latitude. Secondly, interventions should be brief.

Thirdly, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton will be aware, not least in relation to synthetic phonics, of the presence on the amendment paper of amendment No. 115 to clause 70, page 43, line 33, for consideration later, at which point there will be a good opportunity for a debate on this matter. I wanted to let the hon. Gentleman develop his argument and allow hon. Members who were suitably provoked to intervene on him. However, may I say to him more widely before we continue that it is legitimate for him to refer to, but not to dilate on, a number of matters that are at best only tangentially linked to the amendment that he moved?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful, Mr. Bercow. I am aware of how indulgent to me you have been during this sitting. It is only in this sitting, and on this issue, that my remarks will be wide-ranging, but I wanted to make the argument about compulsion.

The Government have resorted to compulsion which, I believe, deals with the symptoms of the problem, rather than the cause. It is better to deal with the cause, so that changing the law—and the criminal law, indeed—to make it compulsory for young people to stay on in education or training is not necessary. Having made that argument on this amendment in this sitting, I will in future seek to confine my remarks to the precise terms of the amendment.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The hon. Gentleman’s argument is that we should not introduce compulsion, because we should improve pre-16 education and then everyone will fly through to 100 per cent. participation. How, then, does he account for the 20 per cent. of 16-year-olds and 25 per cent. of 17-year-olds who are not participating but have achieved level 2 qualifications? Why have they not sailed on into participation? How would the hon. Gentleman engage them to participate in the way that he accepts would be beneficial not only for them but for the nation?

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

It is a good argument. Young people get the qualifications that they need to get. The question is: have they enjoyed their education, have they achieved while at school and have they acquired the knowledge and ability to pursue further academic study or further training, based on what they have acquired leading up to that stage? They may have a raft of qualifications—we could have a debate on another occasion about what has happened to qualifications in the past 20 or 30 years—but I am arguing that many young people leave school not adequately prepared for later life, and that they have an unhappy experience in their time at school.

During the evidence sessions, we heard a number of witnesses talk about making the key stage 3 curriculum more relevant. I will talk on another occasion about what has been happening to the curriculum in recent years and why it has contributed to the disaffection and boredom that some children face in school. For example, I believe that a geography lesson about town planning is a key reason why so few children want to study geography to GCSE.

The system should be about imparting knowledge. I recommend another book to the Committee: E.D. Hirsch’s “The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them”, which explains the ideology that has dominated American schools and the British education system for decades. It is an anti-knowledge ideology that says that children should be given all-purpose tools to learn, rather than have knowledge imparted to them—as if there is such a thing as an all-purpose tool. Every subject has its own approach to learning and concepts, and needs to be taught as a subject.

I disagree with Professor John White, an external advisor to the key stage 3 review, who, in a work entitled, “What Schools Are For and Why”—I do not recommend it to the Committee—said that the

“academic, subject-based curriculum is a middle-class creation”.

He goes on to ask:

“Is reading Scott Fitzgerald of higher value than walking in the woods or spending an evening with friends”?

Gordon Marsden (Labour, Blackpool South)

I am familiar with the hon. Gentleman’s argument, but I gently suggest to him that it is rather old news. Such debates about content versus skills were widely circulated when the national curriculum was created—I had a peripheral involvement in that creation. The same arguments were made then about the teaching of history. Surely the answer is that we need both skills and content.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Yes, but the balance has shifted way too far towards skills. The key stage 3 curriculum that comes into place this September is based very much on the Opening Minds curriculum proposed by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce—I may cite the RSA later in Committee—thus demonstrating that the curriculum has moved to that end of the spectrum. I recently sat in on a history lesson that focused on skills—chronology in this case—in which children were taught isolated and unnuanced facts and dates about the civil war and asked to put them in chronological order. It was excruciating: all the nuances and interesting aspects of that important period in our history were lost in teaching the so-called skill of chronology.

I do not want to pursue that line of argument any further; the Committee has been very patient. However, when discussing changes in the law that require, on pain of criminal sanctions, a young person to participate in education or vocational training, it is important to understand why we have such a low participation rate compared with other developed nations. Unless we, as parliamentarians and Ministers, are prepared to challenge that ideology, as Michael Barber bravely did, and as Lord Adonis continues to to do, there will be no improvement in educational achievement in this country. New laws to compel attendance might result in data suggesting higher attendance rates, but new examinations and qualifications that prevent comparisons with results in previous years will not conceal the effects of an educational system from the real world, which increasingly demands high levels of knowledge, expertise and general education. The real objective is to help young people who are not in education or employment.

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) concluded his speech on Second Reading thus:

“My plea is for the group whom we are failing most...they are in no way damaged...They are very bright. The question is: why, when they are so bright, do we fail them so dismally?”—[Official Report, 14 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 705-706.]

Before imposing this new duty on young people, whom the Government, the education system—all of us—have failed, should we not first examine how young people have been let down by our education system, and put that right, rather than pass the whole burden of our failings on to a group of 16 and 17-year-olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds and communities?

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

May I join the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton in welcoming you to the Chair, Mr. Bercow, along with Mr. Bayley, in due course? We have great confidence that you will continue to chair our proceedings with fairness, incisiveness and a degree of tolerance, or what you described a moment ago as latitude. I hope that, at some stage, I may benefit from the same latitude from which the hon. Gentleman benefited.

I also welcome the excellent ministerial team who, I am sure, will allow us to have a civilised, constructive debate. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, the hon. Member for Tottenham will not spread any of his germs among us. He has temporarily departed the Committee, although I am not sure whether that is to prevent the spread of germs or because he knew that I was speaking.

I welcome all the enthusiastic Government Back Benchers who will support their colleagues over the next few weeks, with varying degrees of passion and commitment, but no doubt with an interest of some of the fundamental issues that we will debate. I welcome the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and his colleagues. He has already given us an excellent display of his passion for this subject. When I took over this portfolio, and asked my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), what the Conservative Front-Bench team was like, she said that the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton was excellent and passionate about education, but that her only complaint was that he tended to go on a bit about synthetic phonics, as we have seen today. No doubt that is a result of his great belief that synthetic phonics is an important issue in education that makes a great difference to many people’s opportunities. He semi-promised us that his mentioning synthetic phonics today would be almost his only indulgence. However, some of us are rather sceptical about whether that will be so, given the other amendments that deal with that matter. In any spare moments during our proceedings, we shall score the rate at which the hon. Gentleman mentions synthetic phonics against his excellent colleague, the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire, who has also coined a catchphrase with his questions about reading, writing and adding up. We look forward to hearing more about that later on. We also look forward to hearing from the other Front Bencher, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, as well as from my colleague—whom I must mention otherwise I will be in trouble—my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West

We are discussing amendment No. 1 to clause 1, which is an important paving provision. In five lines, it ushers in the element of compulsion that is central to the Bill and is a significant expansion of the Government’s power over 16 and 17-year-olds and their parents, and over employers and local authorities. It is therefore right that we look carefully at the clause and at the amendment. The clause sets out who will be affected by the powers of compulsion. It describes them, essentially, as English, and it highlights the fact that the measure will not apply to other parts of the United Kingdom. It indicates that it will apply broadly to those between the ages of 16 and 18 and to those individuals who have not attained a level 3 qualification. The amendment moved by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton would give an opt-in to those individuals in relation to compulsion. To that extent, we welcome it. We have already expressed, on the record on Second Reading, our many concerns about compulsion. Amendment No. 1 would turn what would otherwise be compulsion into an opt-in, which is sensible.

The hon. Gentleman said—you indicated this was satisfactory, Mr. Bercow—that he would try to use debate on the early clauses to set out his broad philosophical approach to avoid detaining the Committee later in our proceedings. I shall start by saying that I think that all Committee members share the Government’s aspiration that young people between the age of 16 to 18 should be in education, training, employment or—and we will come to this later—some other kind of support that will help them into education, training or employment. It is of great concern that so many young people between those ages are not in education, employment or training and do not receive adequate support. The hon. Gentleman reminded us that in trying to resolve those problems, we should not focus simply on the symptoms, but on the many problems that create the environment in which many young people drop out of education, training and employment at 16—no doubt we will spend time on that issue later. We all know that many of those problems go back to the earliest years in education and, indeed, even before youngsters engage in education and training in the first place. We share the hon. Gentleman’s aspiration that more focus needs to be put on that particular part of young people’s lives to ensure that they are equipped with the skills and aspirations to enable them to choose for themselves whether to stay on in education beyond the age of 16.

We have other concerns about compulsion, which I will outline in a moment, but I begin by saying that we support the amendment for the reasons given, and because it will blunt the compulsion weapon that the Government are seeking to apply in that area. One of the issues that we rehearsed on Second Reading, and to which we should now return, is whether it is appropriate to apply compulsion to young people between the ages of 16 to 18. In introducing the Bill, the Government believe that it is perfectly proper for the state to insist that young people should stay on until the age of 18. We assume that at some point, even the Minister would agree that the Government have no place putting a duty on young people to undertake education and training. We also assume that even if there were evidence that it is beneficial to be in education and training beyond the age of 18, the Government would stop at that point and say that once people have reached full adulthood, it is totally inappropriate for the state to insist that they should engage in a particular form of activity.

Jim Knight indicated assent.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I notice the Minister is nodding, so we can be reassured that there will not be an appeal to determine whether the Government have decided that education and training is enormously beneficial up to the age of 21 or 25 and that everyone will be obliged to stay on until then.

On Second Reading, we debated with the Secretary of State the compulsion exercised in the past to raise the education leaving age from the low level, for example, 100 years ago. We consider that to be a different issue. There has never been any dispute that individuals of a much lower age than 16 count as children, and therefore that it is appropriate for the state to legislate for them and insist that they should be in education until the age at which they are considered to assume adulthood. I hope that the Minister recognises that, in applying compulsion to this group of young people, we are in much muddier waters. We grant an extensive range of rights to 16-year-olds in relation to the choices that they make. However, the Bill seems to be cutting against that.

On Second Reading, we noted that the deputy leader of the Labour party and Leader of the House had suggested that those rights might be extended in future to allow young people to vote at 16. They would therefore be considered to be of an appropriate age to have a say in the running of the country. That would add to the huge range of rights that 16-year-olds enjoy. As we are we are considering the issue of compulsion, we should remind ourselves what those freedoms are—it is important that we discuss the subject, now rather than return to it later. The Children’s Legal Centre has provided a useful list of the freedoms that young people enjoy at age 16. I will refer only to a few of them, Mr. Bercow; otherwise, not only would I try your patience but I am not sure that I would have time to read out all the things that a 16-year-old can do.

Members of the Committee may be interested to know that 16-year-olds are afforded the following freedoms: they are considered capable of joining the armed forces; they are allowed to change their name by deed poll without parental consent; they can hold a driving license; and at the moment they can leave school, although they are still entitled to receive full-time education far beyond 16. Members of the Committee may not know that 16-year-olds are also allowed to enter or, indeed, live in a brothel; apparently, even children under the age of four are allowed to do so, for reasons that are not entirely clear. Furthermore, 16-year-olds can work full-time if they leave school; they can act as a pilot in command of an aircraft, for the purposes of flight; they can participate in private or non-commercial gaming or betting, and—it says “probably” in my notes—they can leave home without the consent of their parents or anyone else with parental responsibility.

Police officers and community support officers can issue 16-year-olds with an on-the-spot fine, so 16-year-olds are considered to be moving up into an area where the state regards them as fully responsible for their actions. They can marry or register a civil partnership. In the case of female 16-year-olds, they can purchase emergency contraception over the counter at a pharmacy. 16-year-olds can buy premium bonds, should they wish to do so. They can also consent to all sexual activity; obtain a national insurance number; travel, and apply for their own passport. I think that hon. Members understand the point that I am trying to make. That is an extensive range of freedoms and, in most respects, it indicates that we have begun to consider young people aged 16 as adults. Indeed, my party, in the way that it approaches most policy issues, generally considers young people aged 16 to have reached an adult age and therefore to be ready for the extension of voting rights.

We therefore need to think carefully, having given young people all those rights and freedoms, before we determine that, because the state has made a judgment that it is in their best interests to remain in education and training, we should pass the measures in the Bill that essentially treat young people over 16 who, in many other respects, are considered adults, basically as children, in that the state, rather than they or their parents, determines what is in their best interests. That is a big concern, and it would trouble me even if the measures were popular among young people. The Department and the Minister will acknowledge that, in the run-up to the Bill’s introduction, there was a consultation not only with people in the education and training sector and employers but with young people themselves. A parliamentary written answer in November acknowledged the response from young people to surveys about whether they agreed with increasing the education and training leaving age, and indicated that 47 per cent. of young people were against such a move, 36 per cent. agreed and 17 per cent. were not sure.

We had some discussion in our evidence sessions about different surveys and the questions that are asked, and how meaningful those surveys are. However, I think that we can probably trust the evidence of those particular surveys, because, after all, this is the Department’s own evidence—we are very trusting of the Department. One assumes that the questions were phrased at least neutrally and, as is the inclination on these occasions, even perhaps skewed somewhat in the Department’s favour. The proposal is therefore quite an infringement of freedoms and liberties for 16 and 17-year-olds who, in other respects, are treated as adults. It does not seem to be popular or to have been welcomed by most young people. One can sum up the critique of the proposal in the terms given by the Professional Association of Teachers in their submission.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry (Labour, Portsmouth North)

I have been trying to follow the logic of the hon. Gentleman’s argument. We have had a great long screed of all the things that 16-year-olds are allowed to do, which I think is leading towards the hon. Gentleman suggesting that we should not compel them to stay on and participate in training when they can do all those other things. Does he think that 16-year-olds should legally be allowed to buy alcohol?

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

When we consider the other things that 16-year-olds can do, it is a serious issue, and we ought to review the law and regulations throughout the area to ensure that that there is consistency, because currently the situation is inconsistent. If the hon. Lady believes that young people are capable of making the decision to get married or to join the armed forces, and of making other fundamental decisions such as to leave home, it seems odd that they should not be allowed to make decisions about what is best for themselves regarding education and training. In its significance for somebody’s life chances, it seems to be a lesser decision than the decisions I have just mentioned.

The Professional Association of Teachers summed up its view before Second Reading by saying that compulsion was

“a potential minefield that could be disastrous. We could end up with married, voting parents being disciplined or criminalised for not attending school or college”

That is not just a debating point, but a real risk. The association also said that it was concerned about the possible effects of the measure on other learners who were keen to engage in education at 16 and 17 and had made that choice for themselves. It said:

“Schools and colleges will be forced to accept a host of unwilling students who will poison the atmosphere for those willing to learn. Forcing an education on teenagers will create even more youngsters with a grudge against society.”

We have heard similar opinions from several bodies that gave evidence to us over the past couple of weeks. Those concerns about young people’s freedoms and the balance between rights and responsibilities were echoed by many other groups—certainly by the British Youth Council, and, although we were not able to take oral evidence from it, by the Children’s Rights Alliance for England in its written submission.

Gordon Marsden (Labour, Blackpool South)

The hon. Gentleman referred to the evidence that the British Youth Council gave us, but does he recall that in response to my question about whether it had considered the broader aspects, such as work-based training or other educational provision outside school, it said that it had not? Does that not somewhat weaken the arguments that it put forward?

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

No. I am happy to examine the council’s evidence later, but my recollection is that it made similar points to those I have cited from other bodies. It was concerned not only about the restriction of freedom, but about the consequences of trying to force young people who are not engaged in education and training into it. The council was concerned about whether the situation would be counter-productive, and its concerns seemed similar to those of the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, which said in its submission:

“We recognise the good intentions of Government to encourage the maximum development of 16 and 17 year olds for the benefit of children in wider society. We welcome the introduction of measures in the Bill to secure better support for 16 and 17 year olds and their families to achieve more in education and training... However, while we would support measures which positively encourage young people to engage in education and training, we are fundamentally opposed to the creation of a duty of participation on young people”—

we will discuss that in a later amendment—

“or an extension of the duty on parents. We believe this is unnecessary, indeed that it will be counter-productive, and that it will be potentially damaging for the most vulnerable young people in society. Further, it is not supported by human rights principles.”

It went on, interestingly, to quote article 3 of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, saying that it ought to be balanced by the protections in article 12 of the convention, which requires states party to it to

“assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child”.

Earlier this week, we heard similar evidence on the potentially difficult and counter-productive nature of compulsion—obligation—from Fairbridge, an organisation that tries to re-engage the young people who are likely to be in the Government’s target group. Nigel Haynes, the chief executive of Fairbridge, said in his evidence that he did not think that all the young children who are not engaged in education and training at the moment would want to engage:

“Do not forget that quite a lot of them have walked away from institutionalised provisions in one way or another, and they really could not give a damn. The secret is getting the commitment—the first step is to get them to want to do it voluntarily—and then sustaining that commitment by making them realise that there are options.”——[Official Report, Education & Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 195, Q450.]

That is one of our big concerns. If the young person does not have commitment and feels that they are being driven into the provision, it may be difficult to get them to engage seriously.

The same concern about compulsion was echoed by Alison Wolf in her evidence, and in her excellent paper, “Diminished Returns”, which she published recently through Policy Exchange. In the executive summary, she says:

“A policy of coercing them”—

that is, young people—

“into continued participation is at odds with everything we know about the links between motivation and learning. Young people who are enrolled for courses and training they do not wish to attend will be unmotivated and, therefore, extremely unlikely to learn.”

There is an issue about young people’s freedom and whether the state should have the freedom to compel them to be engaged in education and training. There is also an issue about whether compulsion will be counter-productive.

I want to raise two other concerns about compulsion that are at the centre of our worries about the Bill. We shall table amendments at the appropriate time in Committee, but our concerns are relevant to whether there should be compulsion.

I shall restrict my comments about our first concern, as I shall speak about it in more detail on a later amendment; it concerns a group of people about whom we are worried in relation to compulsion for education or training, because they have great vulnerabilities in their personal circumstances. They may have drug or alcohol problems, mental health problems or other health problems and issues; they may be caring for someone who is terminally ill or they may be a parent. As we know there is already in society today a proportion of young people who are not engaged in education or training and, unfortunately, a larger group of young people—larger than we like to think—who have grown up in severe and difficult circumstances, either because of their environment or because of their medical and other problems. Many of those youngsters are detached from education and training, not only at 16 and 17, but sometimes way before that. The Government, and perhaps even some of the witnesses, underestimate how many such youngsters there are and how difficult it will be to get them to engage.

I do not underestimate the superb work of some voluntary bodies and many colleges in getting difficult-to-reach youngsters back and engaged, and giving them the necessary support to sustain them in learning. However, I wonder whether for some young people education and training is not a viable option. From recent experience, I can think of some in my constituency with whom we would have no chance whatever of getting them to engage meaningfully in something that looks like education and training.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Are there therefore categories of young people who should be exempt from a duty to participate? I realise that the hon. Gentleman must accept the principle of compulsion to answer that question, which he does not, but he implies that education and training should be available to everyone, except for a few on whom we should just give up.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

Obviously, I believe that education and training should be an entitlement and available to everyone, but I do not believe in compulsion. A particular concern with compulsion—we will return to that later so I shall not go into too much depth because another amendment to clause 1 touches on this directly—is that there may be a group of young people whose vulnerabilities mean that the prospects of getting them to engage in education and training per se will be remote. We may not persuade the Minister to back away completely from the concept of compulsion, although we will not hold up the white flag yet, but I want to persuade him of the need to make the system more flexible.

Some young people might need to take their entitlement later because of their personal circumstances or because they need a kind of support that does not constitute education or training, unless we stretched the meaning of those words beyond what most people would understand by them. Such young people might need intensive support, which might be immensely expensive and specialist, but might not constitute education or training. As we are all aware—one of the groups representing young people with special needs made this point—there is a large group of young people with very great needs, but they are not getting enough support to meet those needs.

If the Government press ahead with compulsion, I want them to consider what one of our witnesses called a fourth option—it might be the fourth option, the third option or whatever. That would involve not employment or education, but whatever support is needed to re-engage such young people with society and give them the prospect of being able to re-engage with education and training.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Has the hon. Gentleman read clause 4, which attempts to define appropriate full-time education and training? Subsection (1) refers to

“having regard...to the person’s age, ability and aptitude, and...to any learning difficulty which the person may have”.

The clause goes on to say that regulations may define education and training and it allows for a very wide definition, which may include informal training and a third, fourth, fifth or sixth option—indeed, whatever number of options we think appropriate to allow us to engage the young people the hon. Gentleman is talking about.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

No doubt we will be able to have that debate when we reach clause 4. I am mildly encouraged by what the Minister says, but I am not quite sure whether his concept of “or otherwise” in the clause is as wide as I would like it to be. Education and training of any kind might be impossible for some young people because they have acute medical problems, while others might be able to engage personally with education and training, but be completely unable to do so at the moment because of their personal circumstances—for example, they might recently have had a child. I want to explore how serious the Government are about making that “or otherwise” flexible. The more flexible and pragmatic they are willing to be, the more they will deal with our particular concern about compulsion, notwithstanding our general dislike of it.

I have a second big practical concern about the effects of compulsion under the Bill— although I am coming to the end of my comments, in case you are feeling nervous and less tolerant, Mr. Bercow. Quite a lot of the evidence that we heard from various bodies—we shall return to it later—points to the sometimes low value of the qualifications on offer to young people in employment. It also highlights the fact that if we compel young people in employment to go into education and training, there is a significant risk that some employers will not embrace education and training, but will dump young people and take on migrant workers or workers over the age of 18.

The evidence from Alison Wolf and others is that employment can be an enormous release for some young people because their educational experience has often not been very good. Equally important, however, employment can often impart skills in terms of attendance and ways of working that are far more valuable than some piece of paper that meets a Government target but which might not be the best thing for the young person involved.

Our practical concern about compulsion is that there is a group of very vulnerable young people for whom it will be completely inappropriate and we are not sure that the Bill is flexible enough for them. We are also concerned that compulsion could deny some 16 and 17-year-olds an employment opportunity that is far more valuable to their future, and a far better education and period of training than anything the Government could offer through the available vocational qualifications, many of which, as we know from much of the academic research, have not been notably successful over a long time, predating the present Government, at giving people marketable skills.

We hope that at some stage in the debate we will persuade the Minister to experience a conversion—to see the light—on compulsion. Even if we do not, we will press him to ensure that he is more pragmatic, so that the elements of compulsion do not, in addition to offending against our liberal principles, make circumstances less favourable for the young people whom we are seeking to help.

Nia Griffith (Labour, Llanelli)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this extremely important element of the Bill. To me, compulsion is the heart of the Bill. We need high expectations for our young people. If we tell them that they can drop a subject at 14, at 12 or 13 they are already thinking about doing so. If we tell them that they can leave school at 16, they are already thinking about that when they are 14 or 15. By saying to them, “We expect you to be training or in some form of education right up to the age of 18,” we give them a much better vision right the way through from 11 to 18 and we get them into the frame of mind that says that they will participate, they will do something and they will use their lives constructively.

Another key element of compulsion is the duty that it places on Government and statutory authorities. There is no doubt in my mind that when budgets are squeezed, non-statutory services are the first to suffer. If there is no element of compulsion, it is extremely easy for people to put to one side the duties that are imposed on them. I refer in particular to the extremely valuable work of following up and chasing up the young people who have fallen through the system. We all know that those are often the most vulnerable, who end up in the most difficult circumstances and quite possibly in young offenders institutions, prison and all sorts of undesirable situations in which they may be exploited and their limited intelligence may lead to them being used as minor criminals for major criminal gangs and so on.

Clearly, if there is a compulsion on authorities to follow up, to find out what those young people are doing, to engage them and to offer them the right opportunities, that will be done. If there is no compulsion, patchy practice will ensue and some areas may have a far better service than others.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am interested in that argument, which was put by the Minister during the evidence sessions, that imposing a potential criminal sanction on vulnerable youngsters is somehow a way of galvanising and energising officials working in local authorities. I find that a reprehensible way of trying to make our public services function better. It seems a huge burden to place on a minority of vulnerable people.

Nia Griffith (Labour, Llanelli)

In response, I tell the hon. Gentleman that my experience of dealing with young people in the classroom is that, often, we have the image that the ones who are difficult to reach are difficult in the classroom, but that is not necessarily the case. Many teachers will have wished for certain pupils not to turn up on certain days, but we can be certain that the disruptive ones are always there, because they love the audience—I am sure that many hon. Members have some empathy with that. The ones who really fall through the system are often the ones whom the teacher can hardly name. There is a name on the list, but the teacher has hardly seen them. One has tried one’s best and sent a few letters and made a few phone calls home, but at the end of the day one has 29 other young people to deal with. The pupil who is merely a name on a list and has hardly been seen is forgotten about, is not entered for the examinations, and so on.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

My fear is that that person is sitting at the back, trying to avoid the teacher’s eye, because they cannot read and write, or add up.

Nia Griffith (Labour, Llanelli)

I shall certainly respond the hon. Gentleman’s point in a moment, but I should like to get back to that young person who is not in the classroom and has fallen by the wayside. We need to chase those children up, although I am aware that schools are now far more vigilant in doing so.

Stephen Williams (Liberal Democrat, Bristol West)

Given that we have had a compulsory school leaving age of 16 since 1972, which is a long period, why does she think that we still have the problems of non-attendance and non-engagement with education? What improvement would the hon. Lady expect if we raised the leaving age to 18?

Nia Griffith (Labour, Llanelli)

I shall certainly take on the hon. Gentleman’s point in a moment.

There are young people whom we want to bring back into education. Post-16, the temptation is to say, “Okay, no problem—you are not our responsibility, so off you go,” but the compulsion element placed on authorities will mean that those people will be chased up. The hon. Member for Yeovil—if I said that phonically, it would be yeh-o-vil—pointed out that young people have rights. However, with rights come responsibilities. It is crucial that people recognise that if they want to share in the wealth of the country, they have a responsibility to share in the creation of that wealth. I do not believe that any young person between the ages of 16 and 18 should have a free ride.

We all know young people, including some who live on our poorest housing estates, who play the system. For them, compulsion is important. They need to get the message that life is not simply about taking; it is also about giving back. They need to show a sense of responsibility and adulthood, so that they can share not only in the benefits of our society, but in the creation of our wealth. In that way, they would further their own opportunities.

I should like to respond to the points made by Opposition Members. First, I remind the Committee about the issue of GCSE grades A to C. The Committee will recall that the GCSE was created from thinking in the late 1970s about how we could put the old O-level system, which was designed for 20 to 25 per cent. of the population, depending on how many children got grammar school places in a particular area, and the CSE system, which incorporated another 50 to 60 per cent. of the ability range, into one examination system. The 16-plus exam was developed, followed by the GCSE.

The GCSE was then divided between A to C grades, which were the equivalent of the old O-level, and the D to G grades, which were equivalent to CSEs. The D grade was set as the average grade—the thinking was that children of average ability would attain D grades. Therefore, those who do not get A to C grades are not failures. There is a huge danger in focusing again and again on the idea of grades A to C and grades A to G in our statistics: we could be telling children that they are failures if they do not get grade C.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The maths specialists to whom I have spoken say that 80 or 90 per cent. if not a higher proportion of the cohort should be able to achieve grade C in the maths GCSE. I point the hon. Lady in the direction of schools in this country such as Thomas Telford school, where despite a banded, genuinely mixed-ability intake, 100 per cent. of the children achieve grade at least a C in maths GCSE—if it is not 100 per cent., it is 98 or 99 per cent. How can those schools achieve that, but other schools cannot?

Nia Griffith (Labour, Llanelli)

Since setting up the system, we have seen year-on-year improvements in many schools. They have pushed a far greater percentage of children to take the higher papers and to achieve those results, because they believe that if the opportunities exist, they should push their pupils. That was one of the ideas behind creating an integrated, escalator-type system, so that children had the opportunity to move from one tier to another and to move up. However, it is important that our ideas do not fossilise on a divide between grades A to C and grades A to G. That stops people from pushing children up from F to E or from E to D, because statistically there is not much point worrying about them. Schools will instead concentrate solely on pushing children up from D to C. It is important that we push up all the way, from Gs to Fs, Fs to Es and from Es to Ds, because only by doing things that way can we achieve what the hon. Gentleman has just mentioned.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s patience and for that of other Committee members throughout the morning. Would she therefore condemn the local education authority in Greenwich, which is providing incentives for 200 children on the D-C borderline to achieve a grade C, rather than focusing on the whole cohort to achieve higher grades?

Nia Griffith (Labour, Llanelli)

I understand the temptation to do that. I am an ex-teacher and I used to “see” a figure on every child’s forehead, because we had intelligence-type testing that told us what they were capable of. For example, the lazy, bright, intelligent type, with which I am sure many hon. Members are familiar, who should have been getting an A* but was only getting a B was as much of a pain to a teacher as the hard-working, and perhaps much less privileged, pupil who was struggling to move from an F to an E. Undoubtedly, we need to be wary of focusing only on one group of pupils. We need to ensure that we are raising the whole cohort.

If a pupil does not get a C in English or Maths, that does not necessarily mean that they cannot read, write or add up. The tasks set involve large amounts of writing, which have to be read digested and responded to in essay form. Many pupils can read perfectly well and can understand basic English messages and write perfectly straightforward English messages without necessarily having those particular skills.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

That brings us to the definition of functional literacy. Ministers have previously told us that functional literacy is defined as an individual’s capacity to write to his bank telling it that he has changed his address. We were told that people who cannot do that are functionally illiterate. However, people who cannot do that are in a bit of pickle, because that basic level of literacy is essential to making one’s way in life, is it not?

Nia Griffith (Labour, Llanelli)

That is why, in more recent times, we have looked much more at the basic skills. Some of the things that pupils enjoy doing in maths and English lessons for GCSE courses are not about basic numeracy or literacy skills. That is why the introduction of a more determined focus on those skills is important and we should certainly continue in that way. However, one of the reasons why there was a move away from that type of teaching and from vocational courses in the late-1970s was the introduction of the national curriculum—a straitjacket of some 10 or 11 rather academically defined subjects, which was not a suitable diet for all pupils. I saw many schools abandon teaching the more vocational courses.

I am pleased that, alongside what we are doing on compulsion for 16 to 18-year-olds, we are engaging in a new look at what we do from the age of 14. There is no doubt in my mind that a range of different courses is appropriate from the age of 14. Why we ever abandoned what had been working in the 1950s and 60s in the technical colleges, and so forth, for the straitjacket of the national curriculum perhaps only the Conservative Government of the time could tell us.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I hope that the hon. Lady recalls that it was, in fact, Jim Callaghan’s idea originally.

Nia Griffith (Labour, Llanelli)

Indeed, the original thinking was his, but Committee members may remember that it was considerably changed and driven into a much more straitjacketed approach by Sir Keith Joseph, who dreamt of everybody having exactly the same sort of education that he had had, not quite in the century before last, but not far off.

To return to the issue of compulsion at 16 to 18, it is essential that we send a clear message that we expect young people to engage, right from the age of 11 and that they should, at 14, choose appropriate options that they will want to continue with. We must ensure that we follow up all of them, whatever their path in life after 16, to ensure that they can make a contribution to our society and that we offer them the best of opportunities.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

It is good to have this opportunity to say a word or two about compulsion. I promise not to spend all my contribution talking about reading, writing and adding up.

Last year I visited a lot of projects dealing with social exclusion, and quite a lot of them also dealt with the interface with the criminal justice system. For example, I went to the north Liverpool community court, which is part of an exciting trial of community justice that the Government are doing. I worked in a direct access hostel for young homeless men for a week. I visited Rainer, which is doing excellent work teaching people basic skills, and I went to all sorts of other projects. Right across the spectrum I noticed that a lot of people lacked basic skills. I had not quite realised the extent of the problem, and I have been shocked to learn that 40,000 young people leave school each year without basic skills.

When I talk to a person whom I have found on the streets sleeping rough, with drug and alcohol problems, of course those things are the first that strike me. However, in the hostel it was quite interesting that, after a time, they would come through a lot of those problems. We wanted to move them from the hostel into a flat, but a lot of them could not be moved, because they could not add up and do their budgeting. The staff in the hostel were teaching them and encouraging them to attend various projects to learn how to add up properly, as I would put it—to learn basic numeracy skills.

Some of the young people were really very damaged. Some of the reasons for that damage were other social reasons. However, when one talks to a person about what it is like to sit at the back of the class for years, unable to read and write, it is not surprising that they gradually start failing to attend. That is not true of every person, but a lot of people sit at the back, keep their heads down, go to secondary school and cannot perform, and start bunking off. It is no coincidence that the average reading age in prison is 11. As a society, we must do much more on basic skills.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I do not have the information to dispute the average reading age of people in prison, but I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman thinks a reading age of 11 means that those people are capable of.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The first thing to say is that the Minister has his level 4 in standard assessment tests, which is the category that someone has to reach to be seen as able to read effectively at age 11. That is the average reading age in a prison, so what it says about the literacy level of that community is that a lot of them cannot read, write and add up properly.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

To help the hon. Gentleman, a level 4 child’s

“writing in a range of forms is lively and thoughtful”,

Their handwriting style is “fluent, joined and legible”. Full stops, capital letters and questions marks are used accurately, and the pupil can use punctuation in a sentence. Level 3, which is the level below and so relates to the hon. Gentleman’s point, requires writing that is “organised, imaginative and clear”, and that punctuation to mark sentences—full stops, capital letters and question marks—must be used accurately. Handwriting is “joined and legible”, and pupils are

“aware of standard English and when it is used.”

I caution against saying that such people are incapable of writing. If they have achieved level 3 at primary school, they can write.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I simply do not think that to have a population of adults with an average reading age of 11 is right. The Minister’s target is functional literacy and numeracy, and 40,000 people a year do not have that when they leave school. I am all in favour of having a ladder of skills, and I do not think that grade A to C should be unattainable. However, for that group, what would it be like, having done 10 to 12 years in school, found it a desperate experience and been deeply damaged by it, to be told, “You’ve got to do another two years.”?

Gordon Marsden (Labour, Blackpool South)

The hon. Gentleman has heard numerous examples in Committee and numerous arguments from witnesses and Ministers that the Bill’s intention is not to keep such people—to take the hon. Gentleman’s words—in school for a further two years, but to offer them other forms of training and education, including work-based training and education. Does he not see the value of pursuing that route, rather than that false antithesis?

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The hon. Gentleman ignores the point that they are angry young people. The TUC and others have said so. Some are sad that young people face that stigma, but all the experts and organisations, such as Fairbridge, for example, say that the key to rescuing those young people is to get them to want to undertake training or education. In homeless hostels, social workers throughout the country try to persuade youngsters who do not have such skills to give it another go. They say, for example, “If you want to be a dry liner, you’ve got to have a health and safety skills, so come on, let’s get your basic skills.” They motivate them to do it. Such measures are not for the stick, but for the carrot, which is why I am not in favour of compulsion.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

It is good to be back in harness with, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton. We are willing workhorses, ploughing a furrow towards all that is lovely and noble, and in that spirit we begin our consideration of the Bill, certain, Mr. Bercow, of your sagacity, and hopeful of your generosity.

I shall start by reflecting on the issues on which we agree. The hon. Member for Yeovil reminded us that the entire Committee agrees on the desirability of engaging many more young people in education beyond the age of 16. In their individual interest, and in the nation’s interest, that is critical, which is why at this early stage of our consideration, it is right that we should set the Bill in the context of the problem of the growing number of NEETs. It is one of the biggest indictments not only of the Government, but of all public policy makers that in 2008, about 1 million young people are not in education, employment or training—up 15 per cent. on the figure in 1997, by the way.

Before a Minister or another hon. Member intervenes, however, I must qualify that point. It is true that the NEETs figure includes gap-year students and young people who have severe challenges, such as drug problems, mental health problems and so on, so it is not fair to say that all those 1 million-plus young people are willing and able, because of their circumstances, to engage in education, employment or training. However, even at the most conservative estimate—I am one of the most conservative of people—the Committee will agree that, let us say, 750,000 of those young people would like to be, should be, and in my judgment are entitled to be, in education, employment or training.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Alison Wolf has already been, and I am sure will continue to be, quoted a lot throughout the Committee’s sittings. Does the hon. Gentleman, like myself, disagree with Professor Wolf, who, when she gave evidence, said that we should not be fussed about NEETs, because sooner or later they will catch up?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Yes, I disagree with Alison Wolf about that. I have spoken with her on a number of platforms and disagreed with her publicly about that issue before.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I thought that I had lost the brief note of what I wanted to say, but I managed to find it over lunch, so I can pick up where I left off when the Committee adjourned this morning. I ought to issue a word of warning: it is really a housekeeping note, Mr. Bayley, to say that I am, as some colleagues will know, very deaf and my deafness is exacerbated by the fact that I have a heavy cold. I will be pleased to take interventions, as I always am, but I cannot guarantee that my response will bear any relation to the question or interruption.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

It never does.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

That is a harsh judgment from the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps I should have said that my response will bear even less relation than usual to the thoughts of the person who intervenes on me.

I was saying that NEETs—young people not in education, employment or training—whose number has grown so dramatically and tragically, face a cocktail of circumstances that are of grave concern to those of us who take an interest in these matters, as all hon. Members in this Committee do. The first ingredient of that cocktail is the declining demand for unskilled labour. Lord Leitch, in his report, is clear about that, as the Minister and others will know. I have his report somewhere, but I know it off by heart. He says that demand for unskilled labour will fall by 2020 to some 600,000 jobs. There are debates about the detail, but what is certain is that he is right about the trend, so if people do not have skills, they face a decreasing likelihood of being employed. It is worth saying that in the 1960s there were probably 3 million to 4 million unskilled jobs in the United Kingdom. The feature of an advanced economy is that it needs advanced skills, and the future of the British economy is in high-tech high-skilled industry.

The second ingredient of the cocktail is the high levels of illiteracy and innumeracy, by which I mean functional illiteracy and innumeracy, which were discussed at some length both this morning and during the evidence sessions. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire, who is not in his place, has, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said, done the Committee proud in focusing on that matter, because it is critical to our discussions about skills and post-16 education. I shall make three points about that specifically.

First, of course there is a relationship between the problems that have been mentioned and methodology. My hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has made something of a personal crusade of his passion for synthetic phonics, but he does so knowing that the way in which we teach people to read, write and calculate is critical to their success. He is right to say that there was a period when those fundamentals were neglected.

I do not take the view that there is a single method of teaching people those core skills that should prevail in all circumstances. I am a fan, as I guess you are, Mr. Bayley, of “Janet and John”; you will remember them from your childhood. I am a fan of those “Look and See” books—which we all enjoyed—not simply because of the marvellous old-fashioned imagery that they contain, which is useful for inculcating certain values in children—my children are benefiting from that—but because look and see has a place in the business of teaching children to read. We may disagree on this, but I take the view that we need to apply a range of methodologies—those most suited to the individual child and that child’s progress. That is true across the subject range.

When training to teach history—it was in the relatively recent past; the Committee will know that I am a mere stripling—I was disappointed to find that the chronology of history was so out of fashion that the dominant orthodoxy was built around the teaching of themes, with almost no reference to the progress of history. We need to teach the themes of history and its chronology. Similarly, in the words of the hon. Member for Blackpool, South, there is a marriage between teaching skills and transmitting a body of knowledge.

There is truth in what my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton says. Although some of us believe in that marriage, for a long time the chronology of history, the core elements of core skills—the body of knowledge—was neglected by our education system. It gave way to what my hon. Friend describes as an ideological concentration on a range of progressive methods. Although it is certainly true that we should take a balanced view about these matters, the balance of argument tips in favour of my hon. Friend, given the history of the past 40 years.

The third ingredient in the cocktail—the first being the decline in demand for unskilled labour and the second high levels of functional literacy and numeracy—is the import of large numbers of unskilled migrant workers. It is a myth that most of the people we import into Britain are skilled. Most of them are not skilled in the way that we would wish; for example, many do not have language skills, and many have to acquire skills on arriving here. However, that is not necessarily or implicitly a bad thing.

There has always been a demand for itinerant labour in my constituency because its economic profile is heavily weighted towards agriculture, horticulture and the food industry. Nevertheless, the NEETs, who are central to our consideration, are competing with more people than ever for fewer unskilled jobs because of the number of migrants. Even in a constituency such as mine, which has a profile of low skills and high employment, unemployment among the indigenous population is rising. That is bound to be injurious to community cohesion, as it will breed resentment, particularly among young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who cannot get their foot on the employment ladder.

That is the cocktail faced by NEETs, and it is one to which public policy makers must pay regard. In doing so, it is legitimate that we debate whether compulsion is necessary to encourage the type of re-engagement that we all seek in order to give people the skills that they need to gain work, to access further educational opportunities and to engage in training. However, compulsion surely must be a last resort.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire and the hon. Member for Yeovil that it is what young people want that really matters, and not what they ought to do or be. Unless we can encourage in them a thirst for learning or an appetite for training, I suspect that our endeavours will be unsuccessful. That encouragement depends upon a curriculum that they perceive to be relevant—relevant in terms of economic need and the skills base required to meet that need—and one by which they are inspired to progress. Good teachers have always understood that: good schools and good teachers inspire learners.

I am not sure that the case has yet been made convincingly that the alternative to obliging people to stay on would be fruitful. Having said that, I have no philosophical problem with the measure; some do—I suspect that the hon. Member for Yeovil does. His is a perfectly laudable and defensible position. I do not have a big philosophical problem with compulsion—at least not at core—because the arguments for liberty are often exaggerated.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

And the hon. Gentleman is about to exaggerate those arguments again.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify something: is he saying that he is not a liberal conservative?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I am not a liberal in any sense. I must not digress too much, but I have been asked a direct question and I will give a direct answer. As a student of these matters, the hon. Gentleman knows that the great philosophical clash is between a conservative and a liberal perspective. That has been the great clash of ideas through the 18th, 19th and the last century. We could debate the essence of that difference at great length—although we should not do so now—as it lies at the heart of the political tension that has driven public policy and this place for 300 years. We could, and no doubt will, talk about aspects of that in relation to the Bill, because a debate is to be had about the balance between obligation and liberty and the proper tension between freedom and duty. It is good to have that debate in connection with this legislation because it is rare that a Bill is introduced that embodies the essence of that tension.

Gordon Marsden (Labour, Blackpool South)

I know of the hon. Gentleman’s deep interest in those matters, but I have the Chairman’s beady eye on me so I have no intention of going down that particular route in detail. However, when the hon. Gentleman says that he has no philosophical objection to the principle of compulsion, my ears prick up in the context of the Bill. What evidence would it take to demonstrate to him that, as a last resort, the principle of compulsion is the right and proper thing to do in the context of the Bill?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

That is in the second half of my speech, which I shall come to some time this afternoon. In my mind—I am speaking very personally—there is no fundamental philosophical argument. I make that statement from an academic perspective rather than a practical political perspective. I have many reservations about compulsion, which I have described as a last resort. As my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire and I have said, it is better to inspire and engage young people through voluntary involvement. However, more than that, I have real doubts about whether the Bill will work. Let me say why.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Does my hon. Friend agree that even when one considers a matter of liberty and liberalism, it is still important to consider where the necessary practical accommodations can be made? The balance between what works and liberty is the issue for the Committee and is at the heart of the tension that he has described. That is outlined well in Burke’s speech on conciliation with America.

Hugh Bayley (Labour, City of York)

Order. We are not going to debate conciliation with America.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

If we want to have a philosophical debate, for wider reading purposes, the case has been well made by Burke, Disraeli, Oakeshott and more recently Scruton. For the sake of the Committee, the practical arguments are paramount. We could reject the Bill or amend it wholesale purely because of the doubts of the hon. Member for Yeovil, which I have already described as reasonable, laudable and undoubtedly perfectly sincere. I admire the clarity of his position. We can also have doubts about the Bill purely on the pragmatic grounds that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire suggests, and those, in the end, may be more significant.

In public policy terms, I suspect that it is whether something works that makes the difference between a bad and a good law. Is the measure necessary, does it work and can it be done? I am not sure that any of that can convincingly be argued about the clause, which is why we have tabled the amendment.

There are fundamental weaknesses in the training system. We would be creating extra demand on an unreformed system. I have no doubt that the Minister will rise to his feet with the alacrity for which he is renowned and say, “This is not being introduced immediately. We have time to make the necessary changes. We will indeed reform the system in a way that can absorb and cope with the extra demand.” If the Minister were to do that, I would respond by saying, “You have had 10 years to do it, and you have not made much progress so far.”

There are real weaknesses in the way we deal with vocational education and training in this country. In truth, the Minister, the hon. Member for Blackpool, South, who is a great expert on such matters, and others sometimes explicitly acknowledge that, and they may acknowledge it implicitly more frequently.

We know, for example, that the apprenticeship system, which the Government have reported on very recently in a new review, has real flaws and problems. The picture of an apprenticeship that you have colourfully painted in your own mind, Mr. Bayley, is of an eager young apprentice learning a vital competence by the side of an experienced craftsman in a workplace. That is how most people regard an apprenticeship. However, many apprenticeships do not meet that ideal. Many do: if one gets on to an apprenticeship course at Rolls-Royce, Honda, British Telecom, or a host of other large organisations and many small and medium-sized companies, that is precisely what happens, particularly in areas such as the construction and engineering industries.

The growth of level 2 apprenticeships has, to some extent, extinguished some level 3 qualifications. If we look at the graph, it is clear that level 3 qualifications have declined steadily since 1999 and level 2 have increased. The growth in the apprenticeship programme has meant that, as Alison Wolf, Hilary Steadman, Alison Fuller and other academics have argued—they did so again in the evidence sessions—some apprenticeships are disconnected from the world of work. Some schemes are not mentored, many do not have sufficient workplace element, and some have no employer engagement at all. They are virtual apprenticeships. That does not do any favours to learners or employers.

The Government, with an implicit acceptance of the problems, are now reviewing the system yet again, after at least three previous significant reviews, many of the recommendations of which have not been acted upon. Nevertheless, we give this latest review a fair wind because we want the apprenticeship system to work. It has some strength, but it does not deal with the central problem, which is that the Government have a centrally driven, target-based, controlling ideology when it comes to organising training. A system that was devolved, responsive and employer-led would be more appropriate because it would be more sensitive to genuine workplace need and the skills necessary to fill that need.

Hugh Bayley (Labour, City of York)

Order. It may be helpful to set some boundaries to the debate. The amendment is about the voluntary principle. We will have plenty of opportunity later to debate the Government’s broad training policies, and rightly so, but I want the hon. Member to focus on the nature of the amendment, which is whether individuals of the relevant ages should have such an opportunity.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I am delighted to do so, Mr. Bayley. If we compel people to stay in training, it must be fit for purpose. That point has been made repeatedly thus far, not only when the Bill has been scrutinised by the Committee, but in the evidence sessions. Government Members have argued that, in the end, compulsion can be legitimised only when the offer is appropriate. The hon. Member for Yeovil was concerned about the imposition of compulsion; we can argue for its imposition only if in return we offer people provision that will enable them to learn skills that will genuinely make them more employable. That is the trade-off. If there are doubts about the offer, compulsion is delegitimised.

The case that I am making—falteringly and imperfectly— is that the offer is imperfect in all kinds of ways, because the system has not been reformed to a degree sufficient to deal with the extra demands, or even with the current demands. We know that because if we measure our nation’s skills against those of Germany, France or the United States, we will find that we are wanting in intermediate skills, higher-level skills, and in those basic skills about which my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire has spoken at length. We have a problem with so-called life skills and the readiness and willingness to work. The system is faulted, and you will understand why that is so central to the case for the amendment, Mr. Bayley. Our doubts about compulsion stem precisely from our doubts about the system.

Given your strictures, Mr. Bayley, I shall not elaborate further except to add two other elements to my case for why the system cannot deal with demands that compulsion would create. The second—beyond apprenticeships—relates to the quality of the vocational offer leading up to the age of 16 in schools, which inevitably relates to what children and young people do afterwards. Speaking in my official capacity, I want to put it on the record unequivocally, so that there can be no doubt during future sittings of the Committee or elsewhere, that the Conservatives welcome vocational diplomas. I welcomed them sitting next to my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton—I see him more often than I see my wife—when they were introduced in a Committee like this. The Minister will remember that we did not argue against vocational diplomas—indeed, we welcomed them. It was probably in this very room; you may have been in the chair, Mr. Bayley. We did so because it is absolutely right that we improve the quality of vocational education in school.

I noted the comments of the hon. Member for Llanelli. I think she was right to say that we sacrificed vocational education for a long time. Insufficient emphasis was placed on it in schools. We came to believe that the only form of accomplishment was academic, perhaps because most of us are academics. Most of those who make public policy are people who have followed the academic route: O-levels, as they then were, followed by A-levels, degrees, perhaps further degrees, and then into public policy. Because of the underestimation of the value of vocational learning, it played second fiddle in most schools and for public policy makers.

I welcome the diplomas because they give us the opportunity to elevate vocational education in the orchestra. It becomes a significant player, and no doubt the Minister is about to intervene to tell me why.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The hon. Gentleman persists in describing the qualifications as vocational diplomas, which is not language that we use any longer because it is important that they have rich academic content as well as rich vocational content. Does he agree that it is possible for a qualification to have both?

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Some qualifications have to have both—indeed, most skills need both, although it could be argued that some vocational skills are entirely unacademic. At both school level and beyond, the chances are that acquiring a vocational competence involves some academic elements. That is true of all the vocational competences relating to engineering, to give one example.

One of the ways in which colleges attract people to core skills courses is by offering them vocational courses. If people want to be carpenters or plumbers, they must be able to read, measure, weigh and so on, which is why an implicit academic offer is part of such courses. Notwithstanding that, we should be proud of the vocational character of diplomas. I do not want them to be academicised. The reason there is so much emphasis on academic education is that we are embarrassed by vocational learning. I want us to be proud of vocational learning so that it can stand alone. I want us to understand that practical accomplishment can deliver individual work and is good for the community and the nation. I am not convinced by the addition of extra diplomas. They are unnecessary not only because they compete with A-levels, but they are an implicit attack—

Hugh Bayley (Labour, City of York)

Order. I say this quite genuinely to help the Committee. We will be discussing, under clause 3, level 3 qualifications; under clause 4, appropriate full-time education or training; and under clause 5, full-time occupation. It would be a great shame, and it would not serve the Committee well, if we reached those clauses and found that all the arguments that could be deployed about the quality of education had already been covered more generally at the start of the debate. I hope that we can concentrate on the central principle of voluntarism to which the amendment refers and save the debate about the quality, nature and parameters of training for the appropriate part of the Bill.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I shall speed back to that specific area, Mr. Bayley, with your advice and guidance in mind. We cannot indeed debate such matters at great length not do I think that any member of the Committee should underestimate the breadth and depth of the resources on which to draw to debate the matters at seemingly inexorable length.

However, one further pertinent matter is important to the amendment. Much of the debate on compulsion is about advice and guidance. It is crucial to the Government’s case that, if people are compelled to stay on between the ages of 16 and 18, they are advised in the right way and follow the right path. We have been told that repeatedly. If they were compelled to stay on and found themselves in school doing something that they had failed previously in the way described by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire and were becoming increasingly disillusioned by learning, that extra two years as he suggested would do more harm than good. It is possible to extend the compulsory age of education and do more damage to particular individuals than to add any value. We should not assume that, by extending the time people spend in formal education, we necessarily and inevitably add to the likelihood of inspiring the thirst for learning that we have been discussing.

Critical to the Government’s case—I am mindful of the fact that the amendment qualifies their argument, given that we have agreed that there is little debate about the principle of greater participation—is the question whether people will be advised and guided in the right way, and the evidence is not good, is it? That evidence includes the Department’s own study, which we shall no doubt discuss later, and the work by the National Audit Office. It also includes the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee report, “Apprenticeship: a key route to skill”, which I have to hand, although I do not know whether you have had a chance to read it, Mr. Bayley. As all these studies make clear, the current arrangements for advising young people at and beyond school are not fit for purpose. Given those doubts about the current system—about the training offer, the vocational route in school, the advice and guidance, and the clarity of the pathway that we want to establish, which should match the clear academic pathway—I hope that the Committee will give the amendment serious consideration. It would be irresponsible to move forward with compulsion before we are certain that such matters have been properly dealt with.

In conclusion—hon. Members will be sorry to hear that I have abbreviated my remarks, and the Minister was certainly looking to me to continue until at least tea time—the argument that I suspect we shall have in many forms over the coming days and weeks will be built around such doubts. There is understandable hesitation about our restricting people’s liberty without being able to offer them an equivalent benefit. Such doubts lie at the heart of the philosophical divide and the healthy tension that we discussed earlier, and which we shall perhaps have a chance to discuss again.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Let me take this opportunity, as others have done, to welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Bayley, now that we are moving into the more traditional setting for a Public Bill Committee. Obviously, I extend the same welcome to Mr. Bercow. We all look forward to serving under what you have already shown to be your most sensitive and astute guidance. You will ensure that we remain on the subject that we are supposed to be talking about, as far as that is possible for Members of Parliament.

I also welcome the shadow Ministers. I was first appointed to my position as Minister of State with responsibility for schools at 5.30 pm on a Friday, and I was in Committee—probably in this room—at about 9.30 am the following Tuesday. We were considering the Education and Inspections Bill, and I was most grateful for the indulgent way in which my comments were scrutinised in those early sittings, as I strove rapidly to get up to speed with what on earth it was I was supposed to be talking about. I look forward to working in that spirit again with the hon. Members for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and for South Holland and The Deepings.

It is also a pleasure to debate these issues with my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Yeovil. It is a great pleasure that other members of the Committee will be able to add their wisdom and their obsessions. Indeed, we heard a bit of both this morning, and I was particularly struck by the expertise with which my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli was able to draw on her experience as an inspector and a teacher. I was most pleased that she was on my side, rather than on the other. I look forward to working with the Minister from the other Education Department, the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, who will be working with me as the Committee proceeds.

I assume that we will not have a stand part debate on the clause, so I will make some relatively brief comments on it. I will then address the debate in all its glory and then briefly and directly address the amendment. It has long been our ambition as a nation for our young people to continue in learning until they are 18. As we heard on Second Reading, the Education Acts 1918 and 1944 stated that young people should continue their education, at least part-time, until the age of 18, although those provisions were never implemented. It is time to make a reality of this historical ambition; the school leaving age was last raised in 1972 and the world has changed a great deal since then. That is not to say that we should again be raising the school leaving age, but we should be raising the age at which people should be continuing to participate in educational training.

We have heard many of the arguments in favour of that. We know that continuing in learning post-16 has significant benefits for individuals, for the economy, for society, and increasing participation post-16 is therefore already one of the Government’s key priorities in education. We know that young people who continue in education or training are more likely to gain further qualifications by 18 than those who go into jobs without training or drop out altogether. People with qualifications find it easier to gain and keep employment, and earn more over their lifetime than those without. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton for quoting some of the statistics on the extra earnings that people get just by securing level 2 qualifications. The individual benefits in turn translate into gains for employers and the economy as a whole.

Our ambition is to realise those benefits for all young people. Every young person has the right to start their adult life equipped with the knowledge, skills and attributes that they will need to succeed. Without compulsory participation, the young people who are least likely to participate voluntarily are likely to be those who are already the most disadvantaged and therefore have the most to gain. I will return to the issue of compulsion, as that is the main subject that we are discussing, once I have addressed the wide-ranging issues in the debate. I will be arguing that compulsion should be a last resort, in agreement with the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, but that beyond the effect that it might have on individuals in motivating them, more importantly, there is a galvanizing effect on the whole system and a cultural effect, much in the same way as seat belt legislation changed the culture around road safety. In that case it took a little while for some of the true impacts to be felt—if that is not too much of a pun—but it has reduced the extent of injuries on our roads and has been successful in changing driving culture.

The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton gave an interesting and wide-ranging speech. Much of it focused on the importance of pre-16 learning and improving the quality of education even further than we have already done over the last 10 years, to ensure that all learners have more momentum through their learning, to take them past 16 and carry on until they are 18. He quoted, as he did when I was questioned by the Committee last Tuesday, research from the National Foundation for Educational Research. That research found evidence that there are benefits to increased voluntary participation in education and in training. It found evidence that there are benefits to increased compulsory participation in education. I concede that there is currently no evidence of benefits to compulsory part-time training, but equally, there is no evidence to suggest that there is no effect—there is no evidence either way. If we are an international trailblazer in the area, I am not shy about it: I am proud that we lead the way. As other countries continue a trend of legislating in the area, between now and when the legislation comes into effect, we will seek to learn from their experience. The hon. Gentleman also said that he was not convinced by the causal link between teenage pregnancy and non-participation. We do not claim a causal link, only that non-participants are more likely to experience teenage pregnancy. Education increases aspiration, and rates of teenage pregnancy are a pretty good measure of low aspiration among the young people concerned.

You will be amazed to hear, Mr. Bayley, that we discussed issues about whether people were reading and writing well enough when they left school. I hope to have dealt with some of that through interventions, but I can add that there are a huge number of things that will happen with regard to the reform of the pre-16 school system between now and 2013, when the measures for young people start to bite. For example, at primary level we have introduced the Every Child a Reader programme. We are rolling out the Letters and Sounds programme developed by Sir Jim Rose, which I know is supported by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, given his obsessive advocacy of synthetic phonics. I was surprised to hear that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings was not such a rigid advocate of synthetic phonics and saw merit in some of the other options, but I am sure that that difference will be resolved on the Conservative Front Bench. Perhaps he was not speaking officially at that point.

As well as those, and many other changes at primary level, we will introduce personal tutors in order to improve the transition between primary and secondary education as set out in the children’s plan. Those tutors will be a constant thread that will run through the secondary school career of young people to assist the communication between home and school. My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli talked effectively about her concern that the individuals in the class who miss out will be those that the teacher does not notice, those that keep quiet and keep out of the way. The introduction of personal tutors alongside the progression pilots that we are working on will ensure that a light shines on every child in the country and that they progress through their secondary education.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I welcome what the Minister is saying, but I have a question about transition. For most people, the question of reading and writing—which I keep going on about—is moving up from the infants school to the junior school, at which point there should be a good look at how people are going and whether anyone is falling behind. Are there any plans to tackle that?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Sir Jim Rose, who carried out the review that resulted in Letters and Sounds, is currently carrying out a review of primary curriculums. We have asked him to look at the transition from early years learning into more formal learning, and how we can smooth out that transition—it is a little clunky at the moment and that disengages some people—and then see the transition all the way through up to primary age. We look forward to hearing what Sir Jim has to say, and I am sure that we will look sympathetically at what he recommends. Beyond personal tutors, the social and emotional aspects of learning have worked extremely well at primary level, and we have started introducing that programme at secondary level. As well as teaching young people about behaviour and respect, it is giving them some of the skills that will enable them to find school more enjoyable and more engaging and to get on better with their peers.

We have a new secondary curriculum, which some are critical of but which is much more flexible. It will come in this September and it trusts teachers to pitch their teaching at the level that their class will find engaging. It allows subjects to be linked together more effectively while still being based on a robust set of knowledge that is required in the programmes of study.

We have the changes to Connexions that we are talking about under the Bill. There is the introduction of 17 new diplomas—possibly the bravest qualification reform that has been carried out for some time. We are on track to meeting every major milestone on time and on target in that programme. There is the introduction of the foundation learning tier for those who are below level 2 in their abilities, so that there is still a tiered set of qualifications and attainment that can be achieved by those who are less able. We announced the apprenticeships expansion on Monday. We are looking to one in five over-16s being able to access an apprenticeship. There is the introduction of the A* grade in the reforms at A-level. We are proceeding with a range of changes at pre-16 level.

Gordon Marsden (Labour, Blackpool South)

It seems to me that the thrust of what my hon. Friend is saying and the bulk of the initiatives that will be implemented over the next four to eight years will answer most if not all of the points that the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings made in relation to the arguments against compulsion.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Naturally, I believe that they do. I believe that this measure is the culmination of a much wider programme of reform and improvement of our schools system. It is undoubtedly ambitious to want to raise the ambition and aspiration of the whole education system to take everyone through to 18, but it is right that we should now do so.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

I apologise for not welcoming you to the Chair, Mr. Bayley; I do so now. Surely there is at least an equally strong—I put it no more firmly than that—argument that, having put those reforms in place, one would want to see the effect that they had had on participation. If we strengthen the product in the way that the hon. Member for Blackpool, South and the Minister describe, it may well be that many more 16 and 17-year-olds will participate anyway. At that point, one would want to take a view about whether compulsion was necessary.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I can see that there is a certain logic to the hon. Gentleman’s argument. However, we have carefully examined the trajectories and we have seen some improvement in participation, but it is incremental improvement. We think that the combination of all these measures will get us to 90 per cent. in the timeline that we have been talking about in relation to implementing the Bill. When we considered the challenge of the last 10 per cent. and the importance of doing something for that 10 per cent., because those are probably the most disadvantaged young people in our country and the ones who would benefit most from education and training, the view was that only through compulsion could we get to them. That is not because they will think, “Oh, goodness me, it’s now the law that I have to do it.” It is more that, for us in the Department, for local authorities and for our non-departmental public bodies—for the whole system—we have a much stronger driver, beyond our passion for social justice, to make the policy work. I am referring to developing things such as the range of informal training that we will talk about under clause 4.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

The Minister mentions the 10 per cent. that the Government think that they may not get to through voluntarism. Is the 10 per cent. a snapshot of one point in time or does it represent some people who might be in education and training at some point during the year in question, but not at the snapshot point?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

If I have the implication of the hon. Gentleman’s question right, I would say that that is true. As with the 10 per cent. who are NEETs, not all of those are not in education, employment or training for the whole of the period that we measure. The vast majority go in and out of employment, and some go in and out of education or training. Nevertheless, there are a few per cent. who remain consistently disengaged. We have to galvanise the system to re-engage them and to shift the culture. Equally, if people are dropping in and out, we have not got them sufficiently engaged to properly benefit from the education and training opportunities that are available.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

The Minister understands my concern correctly. If his Department has any information and research available on this issue, describing this 10 per cent. and telling us whether such people are in education and training at any point in the year in question, will he make it available to the Committee?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I think that we have some good analysis of the 10 per cent. not in education, employment or training. It is fair to make a broad comparison between that 10 per cent. and the 10 per cent. that we are chasing after. We also want those in full-time work to be involved in some form of education and training. That is a fundamental part of the Bill as well, which we will discuss when we move on to clause 2. It is fair for the hon. Gentleman to take the analysis of the NEETs, and I will discuss with officials whether we have enough in the public domain to satisfy him and the rest of the Committee. If I have to furnish the Committee with more information, I will, of course, look to do so.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

It seems to me that we have reached a salient point. The Minister has now said that the principal justification for compulsion—and that is what we are debating—is to chase after 10 per cent. of the cohort. If that is right, we are introducing compulsion for many for the benefit of a very important small number of young people. I wonder what proportion of those young people will be difficult to engage, even with compulsion. We know that in year 11 in secondary school, the combined total of authorised and unauthorised absence is between 8 and 10 per cent. of the school population. Of the people that the Minister most wants to get at, does he envisage that a number will not attend even if they are compelled to do so?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The 10 per cent. figure is what we are principally chasing after. However, we are chasing after it by seeking to shift the culture. I want to quote Paul Head, the fine constituent of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for Innovation, Universities and Skills. He stated:

“The reason I welcome compulsion is that it changes the nature of the terms of the debate. You no longer ask, ‘How do we work our way up to 85 or 90 per cent.?’ You actually start asking, ‘Why are we not at 100 per cent.?’ That is a mindset difference that schools, colleges, local authorities, employers and private training providers need to get their heads around. We have to do it for 100 per cent.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 154, Q348.]

I felt that that was a compelling statement that was made by that particular college principal, and it sums up much of the argument around why we are seeking to do this.

In respect of the point about absence, I am sure that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire will be listening very closely to this. It is easy for people to associate absence with truancy because in normal use of the English language the two words are related. However, in respect of what the statistics actually measure, there is a strong difference between general absence, which includes authorised absence and truancy, and unauthorised absence, which includes a number of other things. For example, unauthorised absence includes instances when parents take children on holiday without the permission of the school. That has increased because in our guidance “Every Lesson Counts” we ask schools to enforce more rigorously the notion that children should be at school every day of the school year. Schools are responding to our encouragement and are authorising parents to take their children out of school for holidays less, but some parents do proceed with that sort of unauthorised absence.

Before we conclude our examination of the Bill, I am sure it will help the Committee to know that, assuming we continue with proceedings until 29 February, the latest statistical release of absence will be published on 26 February. For the first time that will include a breakdown of excuses, so we will finally be able to nail down more closely what numbers are truant and what numbers are not. I am sure that will be of huge comfort to the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

While the Minister is reading his note, perhaps I could be helpful to him. The point still stands. He is right to say that we are dealing with three kinds of absence: authorised, other types of unauthorised but not truancy, and truancy. I chose my earlier words carefully for that reason. It is surely not unreasonable to assume that the pattern will be similar for people between the ages of 16 to 18. All those types of absence will apply in the same way to 16 and 17-year-olds as they do to younger people. It might be helpful to the Committee if he could say whether the Government have done any modelling on that matter—I did ask that question in the evidence session. We could then find out whether the Government predict that the pattern will continue or whether they take a different view.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

If I received a submission and was asked to make a decision about whether to commission that sort of research, I would say that there are many factors to take into account. I have set out all the changes to be made to the schooling system pre-16 to make it more engaging and productive, and to improve standards. It is very difficult for any academic to properly predict what the effect on absence will be by the time the measure comes into effect. Assuming it is not a middle-school system, the current year 6 cohort that is currently in its last year of primary school will be the first year affected by the measure. To predict how that cohort will respond to the changes that are taking place and what they will do in respect of absence thereafter is too difficult an issue to provide value-for-money research. I shall consult my officials later, and if I find out that we have commissioned such research, I will let the Committee know and tell hon. Members what it says—but I will also ask the officials how they managed to get approval.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

There is great concern in the EU about the informal—grey—economy. I know that the French presidency is planning to hold a major conference about the grey economy, to which I am sure the Minister will be invited. To what extent does this policy aim to remove young people between 16 to 18 from criminality, the grey economy and those sorts of activities? Do his figures, or his research if he has done any, show to what extent that 10 per cent. are involved in such activities?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I do not have any figures to hand on what proportion are involved in the grey economy. The hon. Member for Broxbourne asked me a question on Tuesday about criminality, antisocial behaviour and so on. I said then that although we did not include it in the impact assessment as a benefit, we are clearly mindful that those participating in education and training are less likely to be involved in criminality—and, I imagine, less likely to be involved in the grey economy. That may be a positive spin-off, but it is not the basis for our policy. The policy is intended to address the individual needs and raise the life chances of every young person, and also to address the skills needs of the country as set out in Lord Leitch’s review.

It has just occurred to me, in response to a question from the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings on attendance, that clause 11 puts a duty on learning providers to promote good attendance. We may want to debate that issue more when we reach that point.

I shall pass over comments on the traditional rigour of the new secondary curriculum, because the Committee will want to move on and we will have other opportunities to debate the subject.

The hon. Member for Yeovil made some interesting comments in exchanges on the definition of adulthood, particularly in the context of whether compulsion was appropriate for people over the age of 16, given that people acquire any number of rights at that age. He mentioned marriage, but that is possible only with parental consent; and 16 and 17-year-olds are restricted in the number of hours that they can work: 14 hours, which is different from adults. As for benefits, there are limited benefits in cases of severe hardship below the age of 18. Yes, it is true that they can pilot a glider or sell scrap metal, but they cannot drink alcohol. I was fascinated that the hon. Gentleman should seem to advocate lowering the drinking age. If he wants to intervene and contradict me, I will happily give way.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I said that all those issues should be properly considered. Does the Minister see no contradiction between the suggestion of the Leader of the House that young people may be qualified at the age of 16 to determine the future of the country, but that under the Bill they are not deemed fit to make choices on their own future?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I note that the hon. Gentleman did not answer the question whether he advocated lowering the drinking age. He says that it should be properly considered, which suggests that he may have some sympathy with the idea. Perhaps a motion to the Liberal Democrat conference will help to guide him; his party is well guided by such things.

In respect of the hon. Gentleman’s question on the voting age, it is a debate to be had. Naturally, the Government look forward to that debate. We look to the Leader of the House for wisdom on such matters, but should we decide to lower the voting age to 16, it still will not contradict the notion that we are setting out clearly in the Bill that the period between turning 16 and turning 18 is period of transition from childhood to adulthood. That is why the Bill includes a duty on young people to participate in education. Up to the compulsory school leaving age of 16, the duty rests solely with parents. Some duties are attached to parents under the Bill, implying that they too have a role.

The driving age is 17, although some argue that it should be 18, and that the legal age for buying cigarettes should be 18, as it is for alcohol, but many other things happen at 16. The law generally acknowledges that it is a period of transition. It is therefore not at all difficult to suggest that compulsion should apply in respect of some form of education or training up to the age of 18.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

Further to the intervention from the hon. Member for Yeovil, I appreciate that the views of college principals vary. Some principals tell me that the character of their college depends to some degree on the fact that the young people who go there choose to do so. They left school, to which they were compelled to go, but they want to be at college. The young people who will be obliged to go to college from age 16 onwards will not be in that position, which will change the nature of college communities.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

In response, I shall quote the Association of School and College Leaders, which said:

“One of the strengths of the Bill is that it is not raising the school-leaving age—it is not saying to these young people, “You must continue in school or college.” Instead, it is giving them alternative routes, which potentially will lead them in the right direction.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 63, Q159.]

I agree with that. It would be wrong for us, or for young people’s advisers to tell them what choice to make. Equally, it is right to say to young people, “Doing nothing is not a choice”. Clearly, I disagree on that point with the British Youth Council. In an evidence session, Barnardo’s told us

“that children should be viewed as such until their 18th birthday... we do not share the view that a 16-year-old can make an informed, autonomous decision that...could have such a catastrophic effect on their future”.——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 13, Q27.]

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

On the final point about young people not having responsibility or not being entrusted with decisions until they are 18, does the Minister accept that there is an assumption in the Bill that parents cannot be held accountable in the same way when their child is over 16, and that the Bill is framed around the thinking that parental duties change significantly when a child turns 16?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

As I said, during the period of transition, it is right to redefine the relationship between the learning institution and parents post-16, which is why we have imposed the duty on young people. We will go on to debate the duties on parents essentially not to stand in the way of a young person pursuing education or training. It is also worth noting the evidence given by my official Jon Coles, who spoke about the sanctions that will be available to the youth court. Parents might have to pay fines, so there is potentially a role for them, but the appropriateness of such a measure would be for the courts to decide.

There was some discussion of consultation. The Department is mindful of an opinion poll conducted before the publication of the Green Paper that surveyed a representative sample of the public, but not, admittedly, young people. It sampled a demographically representative 859 adults aged 16 or over, although I detect a slight contradiction in calling people aged 16 or over “adults”. Of the people questioned, 90 per cent. thought that young people should remain in education or training up to the age of 18, and 76 per cent. agreed strongly. When asked whether the participation should be a legal requirement, 66 per cent. were in favour, so there is a good range of opinion on the subject. We also heard from Opposition spokesmen a repetition of the argument that vocational qualifications were of dubious value.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

Not all of them.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Not all of them, but some. There was reference to Alison Wolf’s analysis. For the record, I repeat what I said in evidence: a wide range of qualifications at level 2 had substantial returns for lower-achieving school leavers. I refer to research by Jenkins et al in 2007: BTECs have a return of about 13 per cent., City and Guilds crafts of about 5 to 7 per cent., RSA diplomas of about 17 per cent., BTECs level 3 of about 16 to 17 per cent., and so on. It is worth saying that there are excellent wage returns to advanced apprenticeships at level 3, but there are equally good returns on apprenticeships generally.

I mentioned the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli, who made the case for compulsion extremely well, particularly when she talked about raising expectations. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, in an intervention, said that the duty would be a burden on vulnerable people. If people are vulnerable and have support needs, those needs would be met rather than enforcement action being taken. I do not regard the duty as a burden on vulnerable people. It is a burden on those who want to stay under the duvet and have no good reason for not getting up and getting on with things, but not on vulnerable people.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

When I made that point, I was referring to the Minister’s comments during the evidence sessions, in which he said that a key objective of the compulsorily element of the Bill was to galvanise officials into delivering services to those people and to energise them. I thought that that was a rather harsh method of management and that individuals holding a position of responsibility in education authorities should be galvanised and energised in other ways. It is a pity that we have to rely on a legal, criminal requirement for those vulnerable people to galvanise our officials.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I have set out my belief that the galvanising effect is important, but so is cultural change or the mind shift, as it was described by Paul Head in his evidence. The mindset difference is just as important in creating the necessary change to motivate the 10 per cent. of young people whom we are particularly keen to motivate.

The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings gave a typically robust and extensive oration. He mentioned many things to which I have already responded. In response to his point that apprenticeships are often not close enough to employers—I am sure that that is a point that he will repeat on a few occasions to the Committee and I am equally sure that both the Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham and I will have cause to repeat our responses to him—may I point out that there are more than 130,000 employers offering apprenticeship places in more than 180 different types of businesses at the moment? All of the existing 240,000 apprenticeships are work-based. We think that there is a role for programme-led apprenticeships, but they will not count towards our targets until the young person takes up a place with an employer. I hope that that is some comfort to the hon. Gentleman. He also made some important points about information, advice and guidance.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The Minister is correct. We can debate apprenticeships at greater length later, but I would just like to make one point. Although the review that was published this week although it offers some welcome changes, is it not the case that it cements the role of the Learning and Skills Council in the system, and diminishes the role of sector skills councils? In contrast with what Lord Leitch recommends, it does not produce an employer-driven system but one that is still centrally managed, funded and driven, and based on central targets.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

When we have a longer debate about apprenticeships, we can explore some of those issues further, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State looks forward to doing so. However, as far as I recall, the LSC arrangement includes the notion that there will be a discrete apprenticeship service, which will work with local employment partnerships in the delivery of apprenticeships and in the brokering with employers that is required.

I attended the launch of the initiative earlier this week—I think that it was on Monday morning—at the QEII conference centre with a range of employers, led by the chairman of BT. There was a very warm welcome from those employers for the proposals, and I look forward to the expansion of apprenticeships heralded at that important conference, which was addressed by the Prime Minister. In respect of information, advice and guidance, I would again quote evidence that we received from the Association of Colleges, which said:

“The provisions in the Bill...are the right way forward...The provisions in the Bill will certainly aid the opportunities of young people to receive that information on an impartial basis.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 28, Q67.]

The Association of School and College Leaders said:

“If you take the new standards for individual advice and guidance—the quality standards—they provide a really strong framework for high-quality guidance within school. We really support what is in the Bill. If a school or a college were to audit their provision, going through these quality standards, and a local authority were to use the standards as an auditing tool, the quality of careers guidance would be very good indeed.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 66, Q164.]

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

The Minister is quoting remarkably selectively, as a number of witnesses in the evidence-taking session agreed that the optimal arrangement was some kind of all-age careers service. Indeed, representatives of the Association of Learning Providers and of Connexions were not unsympathetic to that proposal, yet that is not what emerges in the Bill or from other Government changes. If they did anything, the evidence-taking sessions cemented the idea that reform to advice and guidance is urgent and essential for the Bill is to spring to life.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Again, we will have the opportunity to debate information, advice and guidance and the Connexions transfer later. In passing, I recall the answer to the question that the hon. Gentleman asked a number of witnesses from the Prince’s Trust, who said that they were sympathetic to an all-age careers guidance service, but that if we had to prioritise, as inevitably in government one does, they thought that the changes were broadly right. Those are not their exact words, but that is the correct thrust, as I recall.

To address directly the arguments for compulsion, we are already working towards encouraging 90 per cent. of 17-year-olds to participate in education or training by 2015, up from 77 per cent. as it is now. That is one of the key aims of all the changes that we are currently making to the 14-to-19 phase. Achieving 90 per cent. will represent a significant improvement, but it will not put us among the world leaders and it will still mean that 10 per cent. of 16 to 18-year-olds will not be receiving any form of education or training. It would be unacceptable for even 10 per cent. of young people to be left behind and not have further opportunities to develop their skills, especially as they are more likely to be our most vulnerable and marginalised young people.

To get beyond 90 per cent. participation, we must significantly raise the aspirations of those who choose not to participate at present and we must change and develop the nature of the offer to them, so that perhaps those who struggle with literacy or numeracy have opportunities to be re-engaged and catch up with some of those skills, so that they are properly equipped later in life.

Without compulsion, young people with lower aspirations—those who perhaps come from poorer backgrounds and those who are most likely to gain from continuing their education—will be missed out. We believe that raising the participation age to 18 is the most effective way of galvanising the education system to provide better, for all young people.

It is perfectly reasonable to ask, “Why not just have an entitlement?”, which is in essence what the amendment argues. I would say that we have that already; the Learning and Skills Council is responsible for ensuring appropriate provision for all 16 to 19-year-olds. The September guarantee that came into effect this September guarantees an offer of a suitable learning place to all young people leaving year 11, and is about to be extended for 17-year-olds. We are strengthening that through the entitlement to different kinds of provision from 2013, including the entitlement to an apprenticeship. The amendment would leave us with the status quo. I say to the Committee that the status quo is not good enough for this country; it is not good enough for ensuring that every young person has access to education or training. We are simply removing one choice from young people, and that is the choice to do nothing.

The system will be flexible. There will be a range of choices to meet everyone’s needs—A-levels, GCSEs, diplomas, the foundation learning tier, return to learning or entry to employment. The foundation learning tier will be flexible, and it can be personalised. Many providers have already started to offer flexible start dates, and we have encouraged more to do so. There will be flexible times of learning, to fit in with those who are in full-time work. It is worth saying in passing that over half of young people aged 16 to 19in full-time work, work in the retail sector, which has extensive opening hours are extensive. Once the maximum of 40 hours’ work is completed—that is the legal maximum that 16 to 18-year-olds can work—there is still plenty of time, given the flexibility of hours that can be worked in retail or to devoted to courses offered by learning providers, for people to obtain useful, accredited qualifications.

May I tell the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, who moved the amendment, that in practice that would not change the current position? Young people who wanted to participate would continue to do so, and those who did not would fail to agree that the duty applied to them. Nothing would change, and we need to do better. I therefore urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The debate has been interesting. The hon. Member for Yeovil made a compelling speech setting out the arguments against the use of compulsion to raise the participation age to 18. Both parties share the Government’s aspiration and objective of raising participation in educational training—of course it is the right thing to do. The disagreement between us is about how we should do so, and whether simply passing a law or changing the criminal law is the most effective way of dealing with the problem. The Opposition do not believe that to be the right approach. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire made an illuminating speech that showed that his extensive experience of visiting projects that help the most vulnerable young adults—young youths—in the country, has informed his genuine concern about literacy. He is right: groups that are engaged, as opposed to just talking about it, with those people have a genuine concern about literacy. The hon. Member for Llanelli, who made a quip about how “Yeovil” was pronounced in the phonics alphabet, revealed herself as one of those people who oppose synthetic phonics as a method of teaching children to read.

Nia Griffith (Labour, Llanelli)

I hope you will allow me, Mr. Bayley, to say clearly on the record that I do not oppose the teaching of phonics. I believe that there are a range of methodologies that can be used very successfully, and I think that more than one methodology is needed to master the English language.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

That means that the hon. Lady is opposed to phonics. The synthetic phonics people argue that not even a combination of programmes should be used. One has to be faithful to one synthetic phonics programme—that is what Jim Rose says in his report. We are only talking about the first few months of formal education, but it is important to be faithful to one synthetic phonics programme. The notion that there is a range of strategies reveals either a lack of understanding of the issue, or opposition to synthetic phonics and its use in teaching of children to read in the early years.

The argument is that there are some children who cannot get it—I see you glaring, Mr. Bayley, so I will just make this one point, as it is important and covers some issues raised by my hon. Friend. There are some children who struggle with phonics; there is no question about that. However, the notion that those children benefit from look-and- say is nonsense. The children who can learn to read using look-and-say are the very bright ones: they will learn to read if you breathe on them with a book. It is the children in the bottom quartile of the ability range who suffer. They need more phonics, not less, and they need one-to-one tuition to ensure that they get it. That is the only answer for those children, and it is a tragedy that for 20, 30, 40 years, generations of children have lost out. That is why we have the projects that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire visited. The prisons contain too many people who have problems with their reading.

Moving swiftly on, the Minister talked about trying to change the culture. He drew a parallel with the culture of speeding and drink-driving. However, there is a difference between trying to change people’s behaviour when they are driving a car, and trying to encourage people to stay in education or training. People need to be motivated to learn. Alison Wolf cited evidence that showed that unless somebody is motivated to learn a trade or an academic subject, they will not acquire any knowledge during that process.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Does the hon. Gentleman recall what was said by a range of witnesses, including the Prince’s Trust, Martin Narey from Barnardo’s, and Fairbridge? They knew a number of people who had been compelled to attend educational training, and said that, as long as they had a choice about what they did after that compulsion, there were good examples of their succeeding in acquiring new skills and improving their life chances as a result.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

My recollection is that Martina Milburn from the Prince’s Trust said they had great concerns about compulsion. Nigel Haynes, the chief executive of Fairbridge, asked what evidence there was that compulsion had an effect. He said that the fact that the young people with whom they deal came because they wanted to and stayed because they wanted to meant that there was a stronger motivation for change. Rainer said that it strongly opposed the proposed attendance orders. Those people actually deal with young people, and they do so effectively. Fantastic work is done by such groups. They are either opposed to, or concerned about, compulsion. Opposition Members are therefore not convinced that compulsion is the way to help those 10 per cent. of people to whom the Minister referred.

A few years ago, the Public Accounts Committee looked into the question of why dropout rates in higher and further education were so high. The National Audit Office found that one of the key reasons was a lack of preparation in secondary school for young people going on to further and higher education. If the NAO says that there is a lack of preparation in secondary education for further and higher education, what more lack of preparation do the young people whom we are talking about face in their school years? They are not equipped to go on to training or a form of further education: that was the essence of my argument this morning.

There are deep-seated problems why 23 per cent. of 16-year-olds do not go on to further education or training. The Minister said that 90 per cent. was not enough compared with other countries, but 23 per cent. of our young people are not entering further education. Something is fundamentally wrong. It is a more intractable problem than just changing the law and hoping that things will be put right.

John Hayes (Conservative, South Holland and The Deepings)

My hon. Friend is speaking with his usual expertise and passion. A point well made by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire was that the business of those young people agreeing to participate is significant in itself, because they have already made a commitment to re-engage. That commitment will not be forthcoming if we compel them to participate.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The hon. Friend makes the point well, as did my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Does my hon. Friend agree that the history of using criminal penalties to persuade young people to do something that they do not want to do is not good? The National Audit Office report deals with community penalties, and it shows that people are not turning up on time and are breaching the orders. In fact, the probation service has so many problems with the orders that it is not enforcing them properly. Such a system does not work without the individual’s motivation.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, both in what he said and to cite the report.

I accept that the Minister is going to split the truancy figures and the figures on unauthorised absences as a result of schools clamping down on children being taken out of school during term time to go on holiday. I share his feelings. I am passionate that parents should not take their children out of school in term time. Education is an expensive service that the state provides. It is hugely important to every child in school. Children should not be taken out of school in term time because a holiday is £200 or £300 cheaper then. My answer is a holiday in Bognor Regis. It has fantastic facilities for young people. There is no need to go to Spain or the Bahamas.

The research commissioned by the Government is clear. Its executive summary states:

“There was little or no direct evidence of the likely impact of introducing a system of compulsory education or training to the age of 18; in many cases change had only recently been introduced, and it was as yet too early to find evidence of impact.”

The Minister scrabbled around, not very convincingly, to find something to justify his case. I am concerned about the causal link in the Government’s claims about wider aspects of well-being. Of course there is a correlation between education and people’s health, well-being and wealth, but is there a causal link? If somebody is forced into education, will their health improve? Page 36 of the Government’s report states:

“Much of the evidence on the links between increased participation and associated health benefits is quite weak and fails to provide a robust relationship between the two”

On behaviour and crime, the report says:

“There is only very limited evidence on the link between not participating in education or training post-16 and the likelihood of criminal behaviour.”

The Government’s case is not well made. Of course we agree with the Government’s objectives, but the Opposition do not agree with the principle of compulsion. Whether that opposition is based on principle, as it is for the hon. Member for Yeovil, or on practicality, as it is for my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire and others—whatever the motivation, I urge the Committee to oppose the principle behind the clause and to support the amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment No. 2, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, at end insert ‘; and

(d) is not participating in a gap year prior to pursuing a level 3 qualification in the following year.’.

The amendment adds a second exemption to clause 1, which imposes a duty to participate. The first exemption is in clause 1(c), and refers to a 16 or 17-year-old who has already achieved a level three qualification—2 A-levels or the equivalent. I am sure that you, Mr. Bayley, achieved your superlative A-levels by the time you were 17, if not when you were 16, but there are youngsters who, after GCSEs, are tired of academic study and wish to spend time abroad on an early gap year before resuming A-level study on their return. The Bill already provides for those who wish to pursue a gap year between A-levels and college or training, by providing the exemption in clause 1(c). However, for those who want a year out before they start their A-levels, or those for whom year 11 is their final year at school, this may be their only opportunity to take a year out before they start a three-year apprenticeship or a lifetime in work. It seems slightly unfair expressly to permit a gap year for those who are academic enough to do A-levels, but who have not yet reached the age of 18, but not to permit a gap year for those for whom GCSE will be the highest level of academic qualification that they achieve.

The British Youth Council, as well as opposing the whole notion of raising the participation age to 18 by law, has criticised the potential criminalisation of young people who choose not to participate. It says that the Bill

“takes away the choice from a young person, for example, to spend a year volunteering on a ‘gap year’, which is enshrined in the findings of the Russell Commission and underpins the Government’s volunteering initiative.”

In its fourth recommendation, the Russell Commission states:

“It should be commonplace for young people to volunteer whilst they are at school, college or in higher education.”

That is a worthy ambition. The report produced at the end of the Government’s consultation stated on page 11:

“Some young people felt that young people should have the opportunity to participate in schemes such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award, or be able to take a gap year to participate in some type of valuable project.”

In addition, some young people called for volunteering to count as participation, arguing that many of those schemes help young people to achieve valuable qualifications.

I hope, therefore, that the Government will agree to an amendment that allows 16 and 17-year-olds to take a gap year, provided that they can demonstrate that they intend to pursue a level 3 qualification on their return, or, by implication, if they do not have a level 1 or a level 2 qualification, that they will pursue a level 1 or 2 qualification. I also hope that the Government will consider the Bill’s effect on young 16 and 17-year-old athletes who are sponsored to train full-time. I wish to ask the Minister, particularly in the run-up to the London Olympics, whether that counts as full-time employment or is it training and thus counts as an exemption under the training provisions?

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

May I welcome you back to the Chair for this afternoon’s proceedings, Mr. Bayley? I will not detain the Committee long on this particular amendment. In the interests of our general, liberal and pro-freedom approach we support it, but I hope that either the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton or the Minister can enlighten us about the number of people who take up such opportunities. I do not know of many myself, and I do not know how the Bill would accommodate some of the examples that the hon. Gentleman has just given to us, although I read somewhere that athletes were going to be exempt in some way. That would cover precisely the types of youngsters to whom he referred, and who could be engaged in sporting activities in the run-up to the Olympic games. Perhaps the Minister will indicate whether the Department has any information on the number of people be involved, and clarify the status of any young person involved in training for the Olympic games or any other such high-profile event.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I hope to be able to deal with this very briefly. We should not be encourage young people to leave learning at 16. We know that being NEET at 16 is universally associated with poor outcomes, as the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings explained earlier, and that staying in learning post-16 is hugely beneficial to young people. They are more likely to gain further skills and qualifications, which helps them to progress in learning in future, find and keep employment and earn more over their lifetime. Those who participate are also more likely to be healthy and less likely to commit antisocial behaviour or get involved in crime.

It would be difficult to define a gap year in law, or to identify who was taking one and who was simply using it as an excuse not to participate. If the point is that some young people want to leave or take a break from academic study at 16, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton suggested, that is fine—young people will be able to work or volunteer.

Paragraph 18 of the explanatory notes states:

“Regulations made under subsection 1(b) can prescribe any other kinds of occupation that should count for these purposes, including volunteering, agency work and working as the holder of an office (for example, police officers or public appointees).”

We want the regulations to make it clear that volunteering would count, as long as the young person did some part-time training as well. If a young person wished to travel or volunteer outside England, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton suggested, they would not be subject to the duty to participate, because they would be out of the country. Clause 1 states:

“This Part applies to any person who is resident in England”.

My understanding is that the duty would apply to full-time athletes and apprentice footballers training full-time; they would still have to work towards an accredited qualification. It might be possible to find a way of accrediting some of the training undertaken by full-time athletes or footballers, but it is important, given the possibility of serious injury that elite sportsmen and women can incur, that they have other options. Not every apprentice footballer, even those with the great premier football teams, such as Arsenal, makes it, and it would not be right for them to have to begin their education again. It is a positive aspect of the Bill that even they would have to take part in accredited training.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Will the Minister say for what accredited qualification he would expect Theo Walcott to study?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

As I recall, Theo Walcott’s girlfriend did very well in her GCSEs or A-levels last summer. I am sure that he would want to acquire the necessary qualifications to enable him to compete with her intellectually as well as he competes for a place in the squad with the few English players at Arsenal. We will of course discuss later, under clause 6, the definition of relevant training and education, at which point we can perhaps return to Theo Walcott’s training.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

A player who really did establish himself was Steve Coppell. He is now manager of Reading, and he has a degree.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

He was at Southampton university.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I think that he went to Liverpool, but I might be wrong. Nevertheless, he is a good example, is he not?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

He is a good example, and a rare one, of an excellent footballer and manager—although Reading are not my team—which is unusual for an Englishman these days, who pursued education alongside his football career. It is possible to excel in sport and attain a qualification. There are many other examples in rugby, rowing and other sports of people who have excelled in education and in sport. On the basis of those compelling arguments, I urge the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton to withdraw his amendment.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am reassured by the Minister’s response to my point about volunteering, and I am grateful for his explanation. I was interested in his response to my concerns about people wanting to take a gap year abroad, and he has reminded the Committee that the duty applies only to people resident in this country. I do not know whether the Bill will result in a mass exodus in a few years’ time of 16 and 17-year-olds wishing to avoid the duty imposed by the Bill, he has reassured me that those who want to spend some time travelling before resuming their academic or training careers can do so. I was disappointed by the Minister’s response to my point about athletes, particularly given that we are entering the run-up to the Olympics. However, in view of his other assurances in this short, interesting and probing debate, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I beg to move amendment No. 70, in clause 1, page 1, line 10, at end add ‘, and

‘(d) has not been issued with a waiver certificate by a local authority.’.

Hugh Bayley (Labour, City of York)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 77, in clause 10, page 5, line 36, at end add—

‘(2) The local authority shall have the power to grant a waiver from the duty imposed by section 2 where it believes that this would not be in the best interests of the person concerned.’.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

This is a probing amendment, and we do not intend to press it to a Division. However, it raises some important issues, to which we will inevitably return when we consider later clauses of the Bill. Although I do not want to tread too much on the toes of those later clauses, it is quite a good time to raise some issues in the context of clause 1 and the sphere of its influence.

We have already discussed some of the philosophical objections to the Government’s approach to compulsion, which were an important part of the comments that I made on amendment No. 1. It might be possible to consider amendment No. 70 to clause 1 and amendment No. 77 to clause 10 as part of that attack on compulsion. Amendment No. 70 would give local authorities the power to allow young people a waiver so that they would not be affected by the proposals on compulsion. The amendment might essentially complement the amendment of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that would allow young people themselves to opt out of clause 1.

Having dealt with the philosophy of compulsion earlier, I do not want to discuss those issues again. In tabling the two amendments, our concerns are more about the practicalities of the Bill, which the hon. Members for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and for South Holland and The Deepings mentioned. The amendments raise two particular issues in relation to the practicalities of compulsion. The first is one that we took evidence on at the beginning of the week and concerns reasonable excuse and the extent to which a local authority should essentially allow people an exit route from compulsion. I want to talk about some of the groups that will be particularly affected by compulsion and some of their concerns. The second issue is whether there are more suitable options available for that group of quite vulnerable young people aged 16 and 17 and whether those options ought to be provided through the local authority route and the other agencies that may be able to intervene. I want to explore the extent to which those other options will be permitted.

As we proceed, I encourage the Minister to feel free to intervene if I get anything wrong, because that may help to clarify his intentions. We know from him and from the evidence session that he has undertaken to publish the guidance that will be provided to local authorities on reasonable excuse before the end of the Committee’s proceedings.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that he will be tolerant if I need to correct him. When giving evidence on Tuesday, I think I explained that we do not want to publish draft guidance because of the dangers of it becoming out of date, but that we would circulate to the Committee our thinking on a reasonable excuse—I think that was the phrase I used. I want to clarify that because I do not want artificially to raise his expectations.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

My expectations are never raised by Ministers. I am grateful for that clarification and hope that the Minister will tell us what the Department’s thinking is on those issues at a relatively early stage in our proceedings because it may save us time when dealing with later clauses. That would be helpful to us and to Ministers.

Let me set the scene in relation to some of the groups that we are concerned about in connection with compulsion. Earlier, the Minister cited some of the supporters of compulsion and some of the potential benefits, but I thought that it would waste the Committee’s time if I jumped up to mention those who have opposed compulsion. The Minister knows that many Labour Members who have a lot of experience of young people who are excluded from, or are outside, the education system, are also sceptical about whether the approach is right, particularly for the group of vulnerable young people on whom I shall concentrate when discussing amendments Nos. 70 and 77. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who represents a part of the country with one of the largest numbers of young people outside education and training, went on the record in November 2007, saying that

“the idea that deeply damaged young men and women could somehow be fined and it would make them go into education or training;—I think it’s cloud cuckoo land”.

We want to explore whether local authorities should be able to grant a waiver from the Bill’s provisions on compulsion to groups of young people for whom the requirements may be unrealistic or undesirable. We also want to consider whether we can give other types of help to young people, because we are not suggesting that the alternative is to write them off and forget about them. Even where there are entitlements, many young people are not getting effective support to help them to re-engage in education and training later on.

Notwithstanding the evidence that the Minister cited from those groups that engage with young people and support compulsion because they consider it to be a galvanising influence, we heard, as the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said, from many groups that have huge experience and are sceptical about whether compulsion is the right route. Only earlier this week, James Cathcart of the British Youth Council gave evidence to us and said that, although he could think of many young people who would be able to engage with some of the proposals in the Bill, there would be many who, even with sanctions, would not be willing to participate.

Nigel Haynes, the chief executive of Fairbridge, also said that a large number of young people who will be affected by the clause have

“walked away from institutionalised provisions in one way or another, and they really could not give a damn. The secret is getting the commitment...to do it”—

to enter into education and training—

“voluntarily.”

He also spoke about the difficulties that Fairbridge has engaging with that high-needs group of young individuals and getting them to take part in the education and training that it offers. He said that among the cohort of young people whom Fairbridge deals with, who have after all come forward voluntarily, a large number still do not succeed in engaging with the process. He said:

“In our cohort, you have got to consider what you mean by an outcome. If you can get away from throughput, statistics and ticking the box, and consider an individual’s progression in their own journey, you might be lucky to get about 60 per cent. participation—you might be lucky. That is roughly what we get voluntarily. The compulsion will not cut it”.——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 195-204, Q450-472.]

We heard similar comments and concerns about the group of vulnerable young people with higher needs from other witnesses. We also saw written evidence from Treehouse, the autism charity, and the Campaign for State Education, which said:

“CASE believes that a group of young people who have severe personal problems or have become disenchanted with or disengaged from schooling...are unlikely to be able to benefit positively from the processes presently envisaged in the Bill.”

Other groups cited specific evidence of young people with particular characteristics that might make it difficult for them to engage in education and training. The National Children’s Bureau gave us evidence that in England in 2005, there were about 10,000 mothers under 18 years old, and that only about 30 per cent. of them were in education, training or employment. The bureau emphasised that a large number of those youngsters suffer from post-natal depression and other problems and restraints, and may prefer to have an option to start training post-19 when their child is slightly older.

We are all acutely conscious from our constituencies and experience of the fortunately small but notably high-needs minority of young people who may be parents, and may have drugs and alcohol problems, mental health problems, special needs problems or housing problems, as the Minister for Schools and Learners said in his evidence, that it will be extremely challenging for them to engage with the compulsion envisaged in the Bill. In the evidence, even from some of the bodies that were fairly supportive of the Government—for example, Barnardo’s—there was a clear indication that they wanted flexibility to allow for that group of young people, both in giving exemptions and, I assume, ensuring that provision is available that meets their needs and does not merely tick a Government box.

In her evidence, Ann Pinney from Barnardo’s said that

“there will need to be flexibility and pragmatism by the attendance panel.”

I shall not touch directly on the attendance panel issue in this debate, because we shall come to that when we discuss clauses 40 and 41. She continued:

“We hope that such issues would be covered in the guidance issued to the attendance panel. Clearly, if a young person is suffering ill health or cannot attend for a short period for another reason, flexibility is needed.”

She made the same point as another witness that

“It might be more helpful to look at it as an entitlement that they could defer if there was a compelling reason why they could not attend.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 14, Q31.]

The same points were made, again powerfully, by Kim Bromley-Derry, vice-president elect of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, although in the evidence from that body the suggestion was that “reasonable excuse” in the Bill was likely to be defined very narrowly, which was precisely our concern. In her evidence, Kim Bromley-Derry referred to individuals

“suffering serious emotional or mental trauma, in in-patient facilities or subject to a high level of psychiatric or psychological support.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 81, Q187.]

She also referred to long-term medical conditions.

I think we all know that there are many poor young people in every part of the country who might not meet a hurdle that is quite as high as that. They may not have got to the stage where they are in a mental health facility or have been sectioned, particularly in the current environment when, for both budgetary reasons and wider social reasons, there is strong pressure to keep people in the community, even when they have mental health problems. There will be many people who do not meet that quite high hurdle, but who will find it almost impossible to engage with the proposals.

Without going into any great detail, for obvious reasons, I shall give an example of a recent case in Yeovil of a young man who was essentially homeless, and was considered by the local Somerset Partnership NHS and Social Care Trust not to have mental health problems that made him sectionable. He had had drugs problems, but did not seem to have severe problems at the time. He was receiving no help from the other agencies, who did not consider him to be in such a state that they could impose that help against his wishes, yet he frankly has zero probability in the short term of engaging with the Bill’s measures, and it may take a lot of care and attention to sort out some of his issues and to get him anywhere near being able to engage in the sort of education and training that we all want.

The amendment probes whether such individuals should be given a waiver. We are keen to understand the Government’s view of the extent to which they will invite some form of waiver process that can be implemented quickly and effectively, rather than going through the complex mechanisms outlined in clauses 40 and 41.

We also wish to explore the separate issue of whether other types of support that fall outside the definition of education and training will be on offer to youngsters. I want to be clear on the position of the Minister for Schools and Learners because the evidence that he has given on the subject has been a little unclear. In his evidence to the Committee on Tuesday, he said in answer to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton:

“I believe that we can effectively get to 100 per cent.”

in take-up by the 16 and 17-year-old cohort.

“With the right levels of support for informal and formal learning, we can get to that point and achieve the cultural change that we require, particularly given that these measures do not come into effect until 2013 and 2015.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 207, Q477.]

But later in the sitting, he elaborated on what a reasonable excuse might mean in practice. He said:

“We have deliberately not defined it in legislation, because we think that local authorities should be able to take into account individual circumstances: the more we define it in the Bill, the less that will happen. However, we will issue guidance, as we are wont to do, to local authorities on how to interpret the provisions. Examples are: a young person who does not have a home; and suitable provision for the young person not being available, such as lack of entry to informal employment training appropriate for someone who has received full-time provision; and long-term medical treatment for a young person recovering from addictions. Those are examples of what might constitute a reasonable excuse.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 209, Q482.]

That raises as many questions as it answers, which is perhaps understandable at this stage. The fundamental question is whether the guidance will be pragmatic and allow for a large number of types of exception to deal with the concerns that the Opposition have, or whether it will be narrowly defined, as local authorities appear to anticipate. It appears that there will be very high hurdles to be cleared.

The opinion of the local authorities appears to be supported by the Minister’s evidence, which was that he thought we could get close to 100 per cent. I suggest to him that a potentially large number of people will have needs that, although not of the extreme type described by the local authorities in their evidence, are extreme enough to make it difficult to engage with them. The amendment invites the Committee not only to consider that matter at an early stage in the Bill’s progress, but to consider whether a more effective and faster route is needed to deal with such individuals and recognise their problems, rather than taking them through the attendance notice process, with its appeals and enforcement mechanisms.

I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that the group of people that he talked about the other day in the second part of his evidence—the homeless and people with medical and mental health problems—could be a large rump, if I can put it that way, of the 10 per cent. that we will be left with. Local authorities and others may find it extremely difficult to engage with those young people, who, sadly, in the rather fractured society that we have today, are found in large numbers across a large part of the country. We want local authorities to deal with them consistently. We need it to be clear in the Bill how flexible the Government are willing to be, because we are worried about the potential effects of a sledgehammer Bill on young people who deserve to be dealt with differently, but may not be if the Government are seeking to get to 100 per cent.

My other point touching on whether there should be a waiver certificate to be issued by a local authority relates to what obligation in respect of education and training will be set out in the Bill and the extent to which that will be flexible. If it is flexible, we might not need a waiver. If it is very inflexible, and education and training can take place only in educational and training settings, we probably need a waiver. I am unclear from what the Minister has said, and from what is in the Bill, whether other options will be available that will meet the needs of the very high-need group of young people who will not be ready to engage with education and training in any formal sense.

That point was made by James Cathcart, the chief executive of the British Youth Council, in the evidence session on Tuesday. He invited the Committee to consider a fourth choice, saying:

“That does not necessarily need to be nothing, but it might be an opportunity for young people to do other constructive activities that have been so stimulated”.

He mentioned volunteering. He also said:

“If the choices are the first three or a sanction, I think that is where it feels rather limiting. I know that, indeed, in a lot of the research done prior to the Bill, many other options are explored and arguments put on both sides——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 29 January 2008; c. 192, Q444.]

It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s views on that, and to know to what extent the options available in the Bill will include, for example, medical and other support, not simply to go alongside the education and training obligations, but potentially to tackle the problems that young people have before they engage in education.

When we touched on that issue earlier today—although it seems a lot earlier—the Minister intervened and mentioned and the obligation in clause 4 that an individual should be in full-time education or training

“at a school, at a college of further education, at an institution within the higher education sector or otherwise.”

He invited us to think that “or otherwise” was quite a significant concession because it implied that it might be in a much more flexible setting with a great deal of additional support. However, if we go further into the Bill and look, for example, at clauses 40 and 41 which deal with the way in which attendance notices will be applied, it appears to be more prescriptive regarding the young person’s obligation to be in education and training per se.

I suggest that, as regards the practicalities of the Bill, the Minister would command a lot more support from people from all parts of the House if he was offering not only the entitlement and obligation to be in education and training, but another option, which would not be the one that he described earlier of staying in bed under the blankets.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

Under the duvet.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

Thank you. Under the duvet is a much more modern way of staying in bed.

The fourth or third option, or whatever it may be, would give to young people the very intensive medical and social support that many of the hardest-to-reach core might need. The Minister must accept that those individuals might not remotely count as being in education and training because the support they receive from the agencies may look nothing like education and training in the first instance. That might be a very good thing, because some of the youngsters that I referred to earlier seem to be at a stage where the prospects of them engaging with anything that looks like educational training are so remote as to be close to zero.

It is possible—in many cases it would not be difficult—that other services could engage with those young people. Local authorities would have to budget to fund those services—often the budgets are not there for the young people who need support. If the Government were to allow a third or fourth option of support that might ultimately lead to education and training, without education and training being the obligation throughout that process, we would have considerably fewer concerns about that practical element of the Bill. It might ensure that many vulnerable young people who experienced a wide range of problems in their early life can suddenly access the type of care and support at the ages of 16 and 17 that they are currently unable to get.

The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton made a good point when he said that it was sad that we have to pass legislation with threats of criminalisation and fines in order to encourage other agencies to embrace their obligations. If the Government are insistent on pushing the measure through, we might as well ensure that the support that young people will receive is as relevant as possible to their needs.

I hope that the Minister will give us a little more information about the categories of people who may be considered to have a reasonable excuse not to be in education and training. Furthermore, does he have an open mind on the obligations on young people not being restricted to education and training, but taking in their support needs; and, in particular, those support needs not being conditional on being in education and training at the same time, but in some cases preceding the ability to go into education and training?

On how the opt-out would operate and whether there should be a waiver certificate, it is worth touching on a couple of other categories of people with whom there might be problems. In her evidence, Alison Wolf referred to people who might have left a course, as many young people over the age of 16 do. We assume that that would be dealt with by interpreting in a reasonable way the potential to opt out through a reasonable excuse.

We have not even begun to touch on the wider issue of all those young people who disengage from the education service before the age of 16. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings referred to the latest available figure of 10.5 per cent. of the year 11 cohort. Although that figure may be broken down to trim off some who are merely going on exotic holidays—not to Bognor Regis—we will still find that a large core group has disengaged well beyond the age of 16. It remains a serious concern that those young people, who might not have some of the justifications that I have described, may still be determined not to engage; they may be determined to avoid the process of local authority scrutiny and obligation and may, as a consequence of being criminalised, be even less likely to engage with some of the services they need and to go into employment. However, that is a wider issue, which relates to the Government’s decision to go down the compulsion route.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

The hon. Member for Yeovil said that the amendments were probing amendments. I am grateful for that clarification, so I shall not dwell unduly on what their effect would be in practice. If they were accepted, some young people could be declared exempt from the new duty to participate and denied the opportunities that it offers because the local authority had given them a waiver certificate. That is different from a reasonable excuse exempting them from inappropriate enforcement action, because the waiver certificate would exempt them from the opportunity. We think that all young people should be subject to the duty, because it puts corresponding duties on local authorities to support them. The use of a waiver certificate by the local authority would allow it to get out of providing the support that it would otherwise have to provide because of the duty. I hope that I have explained the particularities of a waiver certificate.

It is also clear from evidence given to us last week by our local government colleagues that they do not consider it appropriate to exempt people from the duty to participate. John Freeman, of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, was very clear in his support for compulsion. We need to ensure that we have in place an appropriate learning route for every young person, whatever their circumstances, which is what we are doing through the changes being made to the 14-to-19 curriculum and the other things that I described earlier.

The hon. Member for Yeovil is right to refer to clause 4 and the breadth of the definition of appropriate full-time provision for which it provides. The Bill draws a broad distinction between full-time provision and the requirement for accredited part-time learning on those in full-time employment. However, I shall talk further about that breadth when we debate clause 4.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, I have an open mind when looking at the range of support to be offered. I want to consider the evidence given by witnesses from Barnardo’s, during the first evidence session, through to Fairbridge at the end, from whom we heard about all sorts of good practice. We have also heard from other organisations such as Rainer, which did not give evidence. They all have something to offer, which is why I disagree with him when he describes it as a sledgehammer Bill. It is capable of being much more forensic.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

May I test how forensic the Bill will be? Is the Minister minded to allow, in clause 4 and elsewhere, for the possibility that the support offered to a young person under an obligation to take up education and training might not include education and training throughout the entire period, in order to resolve whatever health or other problems that the young person might have?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I am certainly minded to support the notion that some individuals will need intensive, quite possibly full-time, support to get them into a position where they can access and engage with education and training. The important thing is that that support leads them towards a position where they can participate fully in what we would normally describe as education and training. Given the addiction problems that some people might have, it would be entirely appropriate that that support prioritises those problems before engagement in education and training.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

That was a very helpful answer, but I would like to press the Minister further. How patient and forensic is he willing to be? Will he acknowledge that, on some occasions, the period of support required for young people with severe needs prior to education and training could be very long—more than one year and perhaps even two?

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

It might be, but Barnardo’s and, quite possibly, the Prince’s Trust quoted examples in which short, intensive engagement over a few months can really turn things around, get someone engaged, and ready and wanting to learn. The hon. Gentleman should not run away with the notion that I am conceding that people could go 18 months in support not related to education and training. The aim will always be for them to engage in the acquisition of useful skills and learning so that they can achieve better in life.

We must ensure that all young people have access to the right support to address their individual needs. Targeted youth support can play a very important role here, as well as the Connexions service. Flexibility, safeguards and local discretion must be built into the enforcement system so that no young person enters enforcement inappropriately. I could detain Committee for some time talking about how we intend to support re-engagement as well as prevention while the young person is still in learning. For example, local authorities have a duty under clause 10 to promote participation and a duty under clause 69 to promote their own co-operation with relevant partners; and under clause 11, education institutions have a duty to promote good attendance. There is a whole series of clauses about prevention and re-engagement.

There is also a series of clauses dealing with situations in which young people drop out of post-16 education and training. Under clause 54, all young people will have access to a Connexions personal advisor. Under clause 14, learning providers will have a duty to alert the Connexions advisor that a young person has dropped out. Under clause 54, the Connexions service will identify barriers to young people’s participation and will work with them to overcome them. That is defined as being part of the function of Connexions and could mean providing support and/or identifying appropriate provision.

I could detain the Committee talking about other clauses, as well. There are measures on safeguards both before and during any enforcement process. It is worth stressing that under clause 39, local authorities

“may issue an attendance notice”.

That is not a duty. Local authorities will use their knowledge of young people’s circumstances to judge whether it would be beneficial to do so, and they will do so only after they have provided support for the relevant young person and identified an appropriate learning option but the young person refuses to participate. In some ways, the clause, and the use of the words “may issue”, deliver what the amendment seeks to do, but more efficiently.

There are also measures on appeals and the way in which the attendance panel works, which we will debate later. I could talk about the support that we want to provide and develop over the next five years for people who are without or estranged from their parents, as well as for young offenders and young people with special educational needs, learning difficulties or mental health problems. There will also be support for teenage parents, young people in care or who are carers, and young people who are self-employed or employed in a family business. There is a long list; I have all sorts of wisdom here with which I could enlighten the Committee.

Support is an important part of the story and is an important reason why we need to have the duties I have described and to change the culture of participation up to the age of 18. We, the Government, are forcing ourselves to build capacity locally that gives a full range of support for the full range of circumstances in which young people live. There is a positive message attached to the Bill: it cannot be acceptable for any young person to be deemed too hard to engage and for us to give up on them. To some extent, that is the implication of some of the comments that the hon. Member for Yeovil made earlier. I know that that is not what he thinks, but some of his comments could be interpreted in that way. We must raise our expectations for such young people and their expectations of themselves. On that basis, I ask him to withdraw his amendment.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I am grateful for the Minister’s response. The intention behind the amendments certainly is not to give up on the young people concerned. It is to ensure that the legislation will be shaped around people’s needs, rather than people having to be shaped around its needs or the Government’s desire to meet a particular target on participation. Sadly, a sledgehammer approach has often been taken in the past across all levels of government, not least in legislation on social security and dealing with vulnerable people. Such approaches fail to understand the acute and severe difficulties that many people face in their daily lives. I very much hope that the Minister will set out a system that is based on the forensic approach to people’s needs, as he described it, rather than a sledgehammer approach.

I am pleased that the Minister appears to be open to the possibility—I hope I do not misquote him; I am sure he will correct me if I do. I think that he said he was open to the possibility that young people with identified very high needs might, under the duties in the Bill, end up in a supported setting that might not have education and training as part of it. However, he is potentially open to a third or fourth option that will give young people with very high needs the support—medical and other—that they need to go on to education and training.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

Let me just add the crucial bit at the end: the measure must move people towards full participation in education and training, so they can achieve the skills and qualifications needed in order to progress further and improve their life chances.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

I accept that addition, although it is difficult for us to know whether a duty might then be placed on a young person to be in education and training for a two-year period, given that the longer they spend in a supported setting, the more they will use up that legal duty to be in education and training between 16 and 17. If the interventions work, it will be inevitable that after they successfully complete the process, those young people will be much more capable of engaging with society, including in the workplace, than they would otherwise have been. I ask the Minister to allow for the possibility that, for a small number of people, the process of being in support will be longer than many of us would like because of their acute needs. When we come to later clauses about how the attendance panels will operate, I hope that we will think about how their responsibilities can be influenced or expanded to ensure that they have that as part of their available armoury.

The Minister also sought to give assurances on the categories of people who might have reasonable excuse for not being in education or training because of their personal circumstances. There is an open field here, and I understand why the Government would do want to start citing examples of people who would be exempt—the list of exempt people could become quite large. I flag up, however, that at least in my mind there is still uncertainty about whether we are talking about a large number of young people who could potentially be exempt. That could include categories of young parents and people with mental health and drug and alcohol problems, who are sadly a much larger number of young people than we would like, and who are therefore a greater challenge than we might think.

I draw attention to the Minister’s comments about the discretion of local authorities in relation to attendance notices. He is right to say that they “may” issue the attendance notice rather than being obliged to do so, but that also raises the issue of an inconsistent approach across the country between some local authorities and panels that take a sympathetic approach, and others that do not. Given that we are talking about compulsion, that could raise various concerns across the country about individuals being dealt with in different ways.

I am mildly encouraged by the Minister’s comments, but I have experience from past Bills of being mildly encouraged without long-term benefit. The Minister’s comments are helpful, but we will want to pick at these issues on many further occasions during the proceedings. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 2

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I beg to move amendment No. 4, in clause 2, page 1, leave out line 12 and insert—

‘(1) A local authority in England shall enable and assist a person belonging to its area to whom this Part applies to—’.

Hugh Bayley (Labour, City of York)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 15, in clause 10, page 5, line 35, leave out from ‘applies’ to end of line 36.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

We seem to be rocketing through the Bill—already on to clause 2 so early on in the proceedings. However, this is the clause that actually imposes the duty, whereas the previous clause defined to whom the duty will apply. Clause 2 comprises the meat of the Bill.

Amendment No. 4 would take out the opening line of the clause, which states:

“A person to whom this Part applies must—”

and replace it with:

“A local authority in England shall enable and assist a person belonging to its area to whom this Part applies”.

The person would then be entitled to participate in appropriate full-time education, to participate in training according to the contract of the apprenticeship, or to be in full-time education and receive sufficient training of 280 hours a year. The amendment would remove the compulsory element of the Bill, but I shall not try the Committee’s patience or yours, Mr. Bayley, by repeating the arguments that I made this morning on clause 1. I shall instead advance some other arguments about compulsion.

The new wording, “enable and assist”, comes from the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, which argues that although it supports measures that positively encourage young people to engage in education, it fundamentally opposes the creation of a duty of participation on young people. It believes that compulsion would be counter-productive and potentially damaging to the most vulnerable people in our society. It also argues that as human rights legislation enshrines education as a fundamental right, we should look to the UN committee on economic, social and cultural rights, which says that the right to education requires member states

“take positive measures that enable and assist individuals”

to take up their right to education. Giving 16 and 17-year-olds a right to education is different from imposing a duty on young people to participate. Amendment No. 4, and amendment No. 15 to clause 10, would change the approach, giving local authorities the duty to enable and assist young people to participate in education or training.

In its briefing and in evidence to us on Tuesday, the British Youth Council said that 46 per cent. of people whom it surveyed did not agree with raising the compulsory participation age to 18. It said that the focus should be on ensuring that the education system is geared more to helping people and preparing them for further education and training.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

The Children’s Rights Alliance, to which I was referring before the Division, argues that 16 and 17-year-olds are capable of making decisions about what is in their best interests. It goes on to say in its briefing to us:

“The imposition of a duty runs counter to significant professional opinion about the capacity of young people for independent decision-making and the Government’s own policy of youth participation. At a time when the Government is considering proposals to give young people the vote, why does it seek to remove responsibility from young people for decisions over their own education?

Young people who leave education at 16 may do so because they have a history of unsatisfactory experiences in the education system, or because they have issues in their lives which make it difficult for them to continue, such as homelessness or emotional problems. It is just such young people—the most vulnerable—who may be unable or unwilling to comply with such a duty. What is more, the creation of a duty to participate in education will not guarantee educational success for these young people.”

The amendment would impose a duty on local authorities to “enable and assist” such young people, rather than imposing what the alliance believes will be an unsuccessful and unenforceable duty.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

It may be helpful at this point if I explain why we think that the measure is not in contravention of article 2 of the European convention on human rights. We believe that it is entirely compatible with that article. The right simply sets out that no one should be denied access to education, and the Bill does not do that.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful for the Minister’s intervention, and I shall wait for his full response.

The Prince’s Trust believes that

“the priority should be for all 16 year olds to be encouraged and supported to achieve Level 2”

It goes on to say

“that raising the compulsory age to 18 will simply prolong the process and potentially lower the aspirations of some students.”

While we are discussing the Prince’s Trust’s excellent work, Martina Milburn said in her evidence on 22 January that it gets young people into education, training and work, and did so with 40,000 young people last year. Will the Minister confirm that a 16 or 17-year-old participating full-time in a Prince’s Trust course or a programme run by Fairbridge—another excellent organisation—will be regarded as being in full-time educational training for the purpose of clause 2(1)(a)?

Professor Alison Wolf pointed out in her evidence that young people who are not in employment, education or training already forgo weekly handouts from education maintenance allowances of up to £30 a week, which they could have received simply by turning up at a college. She said that those people are not simply neutral and waiting for Government direction; they are actively opposed to participation, so imposing a duty on such people will have minimal effect.

In “Diminished Returns”, she pointed out:

“A wealth of psychological evidence demonstrates that human beings that human beings do not learn unless they are motivated to do so.”

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Does my hon. Friend agree that one the beauties of amendment No. 15 is that it imposes on the education authority a duty to look at the interests of people generally in their area? On the point that he has just made about motivation, is not the case that to create a secure environment for other students in the college or whatever, it is necessary for someone who is, say, a drug dealer to put that life to one side, to become involved in education and to set themselves straight. When he gave evidence, Mr. Head mentioned the lad who turned up in the brand new BMW 3, and who was obviously economically active. There are drug dealers in that age group, and we do not really want them in college unless they are motivated to learn rather than to act in a criminal manner.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

My hon. Friend is exactly right, and I am about to come on to that point. He may like to read the book, “Wasted: Mark Johnson”, which is recommended by the Prince’s Trust. I have met Mark Johnson, who is a splendid man of 30 who has turned his life around. When he was 16, the idea that he could have attended any sort of training course, given the problems that he faced and the life that he led, was just not credible.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Last night, the Prince’s Trust held an excellent reception with Bill Gates, and many young entrepreneurs were present. Several of them had been to prison, come out and, while still young, had set up businesses with the support of the Prince’s Trust. However, they had chosen a different lifestyle, and were motivated to make a success of it. That is important.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I agree with him totally.

The Local Government Association adopted a similar position to Alison Wolf, and noted in its written evidence that it does not believe that compulsion

“is the way to engage with young people or to obtain their attendance for effective learning.”

Indeed, compulsory participation might not only result in unmotivated youngsters learning very little: it could also damage the wider atmosphere, undermining those young people who are ready and willing to participate. As the hon. Member for Yeovil said, Professor Wolf raised that concern in “Diminished Returns”, in which she stated that it was “empirically demonstrable” that large numbers

“of forced participants will have a strong negative effect on the environment”.

There is therefore a real danger that compulsion will fail to ensure that disaffected young people successfully participate in education. Moreover, forcing unwilling youngsters into unwanted training may well hamper the progress of those who are motivated to gain new skills.

I noted widespread concern among witnesses in our evidence sessions that compulsion could have a severely detrimental effect on the prospects of those marginalised young people who will invariably bear the brunt of the new enforcement measures. The Association of Learning Providers, for example, told the Committee that for a minority of youngsters,

“compulsion will not have the desired effect and you will accentuate a problem we have now.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 24 January 2008; c. 123, Q300.]

The ALP said that, as a result, the problems afflicting the NEET group could become worse rather than better. The Institute of Directors, in its response to the consultation process, stated that

“the only sustainable and workable system is founded on a voluntary approach to participation”,

and that any measures resulting in young people entering the youth justice system had to be regarded as a “terrible outcome.” The National Association of Head Teachers wrote:

“Compulsion, because of the negative impact which it will have both on the younger generation and on schools, is emphatically not the route to choose”.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers wrote:

“The case for compulsion has not been made”.

Ministers have insisted that enforcement will be treated as a last resort. The Minister of State has implied that the number of people involved is small, but he conceded in his evidence that the number of people who would have attendance order notices issued against them would be 6,000.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I think that I made it perfectly clear in answer to question 481, asked by the hon. Member for Yeovil, that I had examined the figures closely because they

“reflected a high level of enforcement.”

I said that they were

“at the bleak end of the scale of enforcement.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, Tuesday 29 January 2008; c. 208, Q481.]

The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said that I think there will be 6,000, but that is simply not the case. That is the very top end of the expectation, because we wanted to be generous in our assumption of the cost so that we would not be criticised for underestimating it. As ever, we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful for that clarification, but the Minister did say:

“The number of attendance notices is assumed to be 6,000”.——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, Tuesday 29 January 2008; c. 208, Q481.]

I take his point; it was assumed to be that number for the purpose of assessing potential cost in the regulatory impact assessment. However, the Minister will remember that in 2006, he announced plans to deal with 13,000 pupils whom his Department identified as persistent secondary school truants.

David Laws (Liberal Democrat, Yeovil)

The hon. Gentleman referred to the evidence that the Minister gave on 29 January. Does he agree that it might be useful if the Minister agreed to publish the assumptions behind the figures that he gave? We would then be in a better position to judge whether they were pessimistic or whether they might actually be considerably exceeded.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his sensible suggestion, which I shall put to the Minister. If he could publish those assumptions, and set out the parameters of the bleakest figure, which he says is 6,000, as well as the most optimistic figure and the most likely outcome, we could see the assumptions from which those three figures derive. Given the very specific numbers that he mentioned—278 youth court fines, 111 youth default orders and 33 breaches of parenting orders—I assume that there must be good papers to back up those numbers.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

I thought that John Coles gave a good explanation of that. He said not only that the calculations were

“intended to be on the high side”

but that

“the numbers are very precise—in a way, they are over-precise for extrapolations—but they are based very precisely on the nearest equivalent we can find in the existing system for the rates of default and so on.”——[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, Tuesday 29 January 2008; c. 208, Q481.]

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

That is very helpful. It would therefore be useful if we had that data and the extrapolations referred to by Jon Coles.

I return to the point that I was making. In 2006, the Department identified 13,000 secondary school persistent truants on whom it wanted to focus. Given that there were 13,000 of them, it is most unlikely that they will be rushing to participate in the duty that the Bill will impose on them. One could argue that 6,000 is an underestimate, given that the Minister has already identified 13,000. I do not know which year they come from, but if one assumes that half of them would be persistent non-attenders under the Bill, that would take us up to 6,000. I cited that figure originally to back up the Government’s likely figure, but the Minister now claims that it is a bleak outcome. I think that it is a much more likely outcome.

Jim Knight (Labour, South Dorset)

We have made it clear that if we raise the participation age tomorrow such outcomes are extremely logical. However, it is important that we make all the changes that I set out earlier in the intervening period. We need to address levels of persistent absence and make secondary education more engaging than it is now, and then reduce the level of enforcement post-16.

Nick Gibb (Conservative, Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)

I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention. It almost supports what I said in our earlier scrutiny sittings. We need to sort out what is happening in our secondary and primary schools; that would have a bigger effect on encouraging participation than any duty.

Ministers also assert that a legal obligation—and the enforcement that it entails—is a uniquely crucial factor in ensuring a “cultural shift in aspiration”, creating an expectation to participate among all young people. However, the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers—NASUWT—states the very opposite. It argues that

“it is unlikely that a change in the law will change the minds and attitudes of youngsters who are disinclined to stay on now.”

We believe that compulsion is unlikely to succeed. We believe that it is far better to use the carrot rather than the stick in such circumstances, and that the duty should be on the education system to enable and assist young people to take part in education. That is what the amendments seek to do, and I hope that they will have the support of the Committee.

Further consideration adjourned.—[Mr. Michael Foster.]