Education and Inspections Bill

I entirely support what the noble Baroness has just said. It is terribly important to allow these people the time to develop motivation and a place in the world, which is the sort of foundation you need to give you the strength to tackle a proper educational course, having, as she said, gone through sufficient crises to sink most people for a number of years. I would, however, prefer to do it in the context of the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and increase the age limit to 25, because plenty of ordinary young people frankly get burnt out by the education system and need a bit of time in the world before they want to establish a direction for themselves. I also very much support her other amendment. I hope that we will move in these diplomas to something resembling the system for learning music in which you can tackle some of the subject in little bits. Languages and mathematics particularly lend themselves to being learnt in bits. If you learn your maths in the heart of a specialised diploma, there should be a way of converting that into a GCSE should you want to move back towards the academic. Some young man who wants to be an architect can perhaps do a construction course and still end up at Cambridge.