Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 12: 12: Clause 11, page 6, line 14, at end insert— ““(e) a city technology college, a city college for the technology of the arts or an Academy.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 12 I shall speak also to Amendment No. 13, which is grouped with it. In our Amendment No. 64 in Committee, my noble friend Lady Sharp asked why academies, city technology colleges and so on were not included in the Clause 11 duty to promote attendance. She supposed that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, would say that it was because such a duty would be in the funding agreement, and so he did—that is exactly what he said. He also said that, through that agreement, they must have regard to the same guidance as maintained schools on improving behaviour and attendance. However, those agreements cannot be challenged once they are set. He also claimed that there was no need to extend the legal duty to CTCs because they are successful schools which already have high levels of post-16 attendance, and that was why they were not listed in this Bill. Well, if that is the case, there is no harm in including them for the sake of equity and completeness. We have tabled this amendment again in order to emphasise the point and to ask the Minister why community schools will have a legal duty to promote post-16 attendance while academies will not. I should have thought that it was in the interest of all schools to do this once post-16 education becomes the law. This, by the way, is another amendment on which the Equality and Human Rights Commission agrees with us. That is a matter of some satisfaction to us. Amendment No. 13 would amend Clause 12, which is headed: "““Duty to make arrangements to identify persons not fulfilling duty [to participate] imposed by Section 2””." We return to this issue because it raises the question of local authority responsibilities in the implementation of this part of the Bill. They are responsible for chasing up the young person who flouts its directions and fails to register for either education or training. They are responsible for keeping a register of all young people in their area and checking up on what they are doing between the ages of 16 and 18 and for enforcing the provisions of the Act. In Committee, we had lengthy discussions on how they might do that and the resources at their disposal. As the Bill stands, the authority must establish, "““so far as it is possible to do so””," the identities of the people in its area to whom this part of the Bill applies. Amendment No. 13 therefore adds the rider that that should be ““possible and reasonable””. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said in Committee, the Bill as it stands puts no limit on things. What is ““possible”” may be wildly expensive. Is the local authority expected to employ private detectives to chase children who may have dispersed around the world? Reasonable, he said, seems to be the right word, to which the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, replied that it was really just a matter of semantics. He said that, "““the definition of what is possible must encompass what is reasonable””." The noble Lord, Lord Elton, who is no longer in his place, then responded by asking that the Minister consult his lawyers. He said: "““Most of us are much more familiar with the use of ‘reasonable’ in legislation than with ‘possible’, and there may be advantages in using it””.—[Official Report, 1/7/08; col. 214.]." The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, promised to write to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and my noble friend Lady Sharp on the subject, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said that he would also like a copy of the letter. As the Minister was writing, he was asked if he would also explain the mechanisms by which a local authority was expected to track down all these young people. My noble friend has not received a letter on the subject and I would be interested to know whether the noble Lords, Lord Elton and Lord Lucas, have received one. I return to where we started. What is ““possible”” is very open-ended. There are clearly limits to the expenditure that local authorities should conscientiously incur on such searches in carrying out their duty to identify who is failing to participate. It is therefore wholly reasonable that the words ““and reasonable”” should be added to Clause 12. I beg to move.