Education and Skills Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for agreeing to our proposal at a meeting last week to put a review of the Bill’s enforcement elements into the Bill, and that that should be carried out by 2016, when one whole cohort of young people has gone through the system. As the noble Baroness knows, we have been consistent in opposing the compulsion element of the Bill. We believe that the Government could have put all the duties on local authorities, employers and indeed themselves to help young people carry on in education or training until they are 18-plus without criminalising them. We laid various amendments to remove the compulsion element and replace it with an entitlement to free tuition up to level 3, but sadly we were not in a position to win that argument because, unfortunately, the Official Opposition would not allow the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, and her noble friends to support us. That would have been the simple way of addressing the issue of criminalisation. So we were reduced to mitigating the effects as far as possible. I am pleased to say that the Government have come a long way towards us by accepting our learning and support contracts under another name, clarifying that there will be no custodial sentences and ensuring that young people will be able to appeal in their own right at every stage of the enforcement process. This amendment is another of those concessions. The Government claim that the full enforcement process will not be necessary except in a tiny minority of cases. We challenged them to prove that by laying a review of the operation of enforcement before Parliament at an appropriate stage after enactment. I am glad to say that they have taken up that challenge, which indicates that the Minister is very confident in what she says. I have a few questions, however, about the operation of the criminal offence, about which I have given the Minister notice. First, when the Home Office issues guidance to the police about the relevance of disclosing offences under what are currently known as CRB checks, will it be made clear that the offence of non-participation in education under the Bill will not be considered relevant and therefore not disclosed? Secondly, will the Minister give me a similar assurance on employers’ discretion, when filling positions exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, that this offence should not be relevant in an objective assessment of the candidate’s ability to undertake certain roles, since it is not a violent or deception offence? Finally, will she clarify the position of 18-plus year-olds who have been convicted of this offence after they turn 18 compared with those who have outstanding fines when they turn 18? I would like an assurance that they too will not be liable for a custodial sentence and that the offence will be spent in two and a half years. I look forward, if the Bill is ever fully enacted, to scrutinising the review carefully in 2016.