Children and Young Persons Bill [HL]

I give general support to Amendments Nos. 38, 42 and 45, and I will speak in particular to Amendments Nos. 43 and 44, which are in my name and that of my noble friend Baroness Walmsley. As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, spelt out, Clause 9 of the Bill, to which all these amendments relate, will amend Section 23 of the Children Act 1989 to ensure that local authorities are required to make arrangements for the child to be accommodated near their school. As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, explained, it is important to clarify what is meant by ““school”” in this context, particularly in a world in which we have a proliferation of different types of school. We have particular sympathy with the spelling-out of what types of school they should be, although we do not go along completely with the points made by the noble Lord about pupil referral units. Normally, a pupil is at a referral unit only for a short period. If they are to go back to their mainstream school, it is important that, rather than being moved, they stay where they are in order to be accommodated back into their mainstream school. We also think that nursery schools need not necessarily be maintained ones; this could apply to any form of nursery school. With those provisos, we support the amendments. We are particularly concerned about access for looked-after children to these new diploma courses, which are often run in collaboration between schools and colleges. It is essential to ensure that children in care are not restricted in the opportunities that are available to them. They often have lower attainment, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, explained, than the average of their peer group at key milestones in their school careers. They are especially likely to be among those pupils who find little stimulus in the present secondary school curriculum, particularly the GCSE courses in which low attainment—for example, a pass below grade D—is often perceived as a failure. They are therefore particularly likely to benefit from the new diploma courses to be run alongside the existing GCSE and A-level qualification framework. It is vital that young people receive support and guidance to assist them in making important decisions for entry to qualification routes that meet their aptitudes and aspirations and provide a means of progression to future stages of learning. Equally, it is important that the courses pursued are not overly specialised, so that young people do not become locked into narrow occupational tracks without developing transferable skills for entry into different learning pathways. It may be that, having achieved the first stage of diploma studies, which will give them a level 1 or level 2 NVQ qualification, they would best proceed to further education courses offering a BTEC or a City and Guilds qualification, or something of that sort. In that respect, access to a further education college is just as important as access to school. I very much endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, about further education colleges. Amendment No. 43 gives us a definition of the word ““near””. In page 7, line 3, a new subsection (7G) is inserted into Section 23 of the 1989 Act. It states: "““The arrangements must enable a child to live near that school or (as the case may be) one of those schools””." We seek through the amendment to probe the Government as to what ““near”” might mean. When we sought guidance, we came up with the fact the 1996 Act contains a definition of walking distance. Section 444(5) of the 1996 Act states: "““In subsection (4) ‘walking distance’—""(a) in relation to a child who is under the age of eight, means 3.218688 kilometres (two miles), and""(b) in relation to a child who has attained the age of eight, means 4.828032 kilometres (three miles),""in each case measured by the nearest available route””." We have suggested that that might be the definition of what is near. The Minister may well come back to say that it is extremely difficult to do that. On the other hand, I bring to his attention the fact that new subsection (7G) provides two get-outs for the local authority. One is the weasel words ““reasonably practicable””, which means that, where it is reasonably practicable for them to be within walking distance, they should be. That is the essence of what we want. However, we feel that the term here is very vague and we want clarification.