Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 50: Page 5, line 31, at end insert- ““( ) a local authority must have regard to the access requirements of qualifying young persons with a disability”” The noble Baroness said: In speaking to Amendment No. 50 I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 51 and 53 in this group. Amendment No. 50 is intended to ensure that positive leisure-time activities are accessible to disabled young people. Mencap has done some research, and the sad fact is that eight out of 10 young people with a learning disability do not attend any after-school club. Seven out of 10 children and young people with a disability were made to feel uncomfortable at their local leisure centre, and only one in five after-school clubs have any young person with a disability attending. The amendment is therefore not simply about ensuring that there is adequate wheelchair access; it is not just about physical accessibility. It is also about ensuring that there is appropriate signage or symbols so that disabled people know where everything is. It is to ensure that young people with a learning or physical disability feel there is a safe environment for them. Such young people are particularly vulnerable to bullying. That often also prevents them from taking part in after-school activities, so they need to feel safe or they will not have the confidence to take part. We might also need to look at the special school transport that often has to be provided for disabled children, to ensure the arrangements made for school transport do not preclude their attendance at after-school clubs or leisure activities during non-school time at leisure centres. We have a concern that, if this is not clearly stated in the Bill, local education authorities might provide or commission leisure activities that are perfectly suitable for the majority of young people in their area, but not quite good enough for the young people who are most vulnerable and who need access to them—not just physical access, but every other kind of access as well. I heard recently from Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the Children’s Commissioner for England, what a scandal it is that in this country we do not ensure that children with disabilities have full access to all the facilities that add so much to the quality of life of able-bodied children. He believes that we lag behind other developed countries in that respect. For that reason we have tabled this amendment again—it was tabled in another place at an earlier stage of the Bill—because it is only when you put a legal duty on a local authority that it feels obliged to direct some of its budget at the problem. The Minister in another place said that he felt it was for local authorities to decide how the budget should be spent and which young people would be prioritised, but we feel that for these most vulnerable young people the duty should be explicitly laid out in the Bill. Amendments Nos. 51 and 53 are probing amendments to seek clarification of the power in the Bill for local authorities to charge for services but also to allow them to provide financial assistance to enable free access for certain deprived young people to facilities and activities in the local area. The amendments also provide us with an opportunity to clarify how these provisions are intended to work with the Youth Opportunity Card and the Youth Opportunity Fund, about which I shall be asking the Minister in a moment. The amendment was suggested by Barnardo’s, which believes that young people from low-income households and those leaving care should be able to access these facilities and activities free of charge. No child should miss out on these educational and leisure-time facilities to improve their well-being. All these issues come under the five outcomes of the Every Child Matters agenda. We are probing to clarify the guidance to be given to local authorities on the level of charges for leisure services under this clause, and how these new provisions will interact with the Youth Opportunity Card. Very little detail was given on this issue in another place. The Minister, Phil Hope, said: "““it is up to local authorities to ensure that financial barriers do not prevent young people from accessing the sort of facilities and recreational opportunities listed in the clause””.—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee E, 18/4/06; col. 238.]" Will the Minister confirm that if the costs of provision mean that some children are excluded from activities provided under this clause, under those circumstances local authorities will not fulfil their duty as set out in the Bill to secure access to recreational activities because, by definition, some would not have access to those activities if they were too expensive? Will he explain how the ability to charge for services under the clause fits with the Youth Opportunity Card? Will he give an assurance that the guidance on the circumstances under which local authorities can give financial assistance will include, and stress the needs of, young people from low income families, children in care and care leavers, such as we have specified in our amendment? The Youth Opportunity Card and the Youth Capital Fund were announced as part of the proposals in the Green Paper, Youth Matters, in July 2005. We very much welcome this additional money to make these facilities available for young people. However, we are very concerned to know how these things interact. I hope that the Minister can elucidate that subject. Leisure facilities that are used only by middle class children and children from families which have the money to enable them to take full advantage of those facilities are not real community facilities. We hope that these will be real community facilities and that local authorities will make decisions that ensure that the most vulnerable children have every bit as much access as those children from more advantaged homes. I beg to move.