Education and Inspections Bill

Before the noble Lord, Lord Judd, withdraws his amendment—or perhaps he will not—I will respond on my amendments and thank noble Lords who have supported them. On Amendment No. 24, the Minister said that local authorities already have such a duty. Then why is it not happening? Why are there children who are not receiving suitable education? Perhaps local authorities need reminding. On Amendment No. 26, I, too, pay tribute to the work of the Youth Justice Board in delivering improvements, but clearly it is not enough. There are three very good reasons for putting the duty on the local authority, despite the reservations of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. The first is continuity, so that the young people do not fall off a cliff at the end of their detention if they are being released into the same local authority. I welcome the Government holding open the school places of those who go to a young offender institution in another local authority. That is a good thing. But there could be continuity of courses if the education of those young people in the young offender institution was provided by the local authority, and they would not have such difficulty in getting a place in a school when they leave. Secondly, the local authorities have a great deal of expertise with children with special educational needs, on which they can call. There are dozens of SENCOs in local authorities whose expertise could be brought to bear. It is quite clear that those who currently have the contracts for delivering education in prisons do not have that range of expertise. Finally, it is an anomaly that the National Health Service can have responsibility for the health of all prisoners, without any difficulty with legal clarity, yet the DfES and the local authority cannot have the same responsibility. The Minister said that the legal duty as to who is responsible for the education would be in difficulty, but it does not seem to be a problem for the NHS. It has the responsibility for health, and the prison authorities have the responsibility for security. The split would be exactly the same. I really do not see the difficulty with it. On Amendment No. 26A, the Minister still seems to stick to his figures and to think that the problem is very minor. I did not burden the House with the figures from Save the Children, but it believes that more than 2,000 children are detained each year. The detention period for those interviewed as part of its report ranged from seven days to 268 days, and half of all the families interviewed were detained for more than 28 days. Some families were detained significantly in excess of that. There is clearly some dispute about the magnitude of the problem, but that disagreement does not detract from the current situation in which the education of these children is being severely disrupted. They should have the same right to an education in the mainstream that any other child has while they are in this country.