Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 4: 4: After Clause 80, insert the following new Clause— ““Careers education for 16 to 18 year olds The Secretary of State shall by regulation under section 45B of the 1997 Education Act (c. 44) extend the scope of operation of sections 43, 44 and 45 of that Act to include all persons to whom Part 1 of this Act applies.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 7. I thank the House and the usual channels for enabling us to return to this issue. I have brought these minor amendments back after receiving satisfactory answers in the past 10 days by means of letters and discussions with the Minister and her Bill team—I thank them very much for their time—to questions that I raised on Report. I thought that it would be useful to all concerned to get their responses on to the record. Amendment No. 4 deals with careers education. It relates to an anomaly whereby regulations already issued under Section 45B of the Education Act 1997 have extended the right to good quality careers education, advice and guidance to pupils at key stages 2 and 3 of the education system but not to 16 and 17 year-olds because they are outside the compulsory part of the system. I explicitly asked the Minister if the Government intended to extend these regulations when the learning leaving age was raised to 18. The answer that she gave me at the time indicated that the Government did not have an intention to do so. This is not quite the case, as became clear in our discussions, and reopening this question now will allow the Minister to clarify the situation and explain precisely what the Government’s intentions are in this respect. In Amendment No. 7, on school forums, the issue is parity in head teacher and governor representation and whether we need legislation to reinforce the clear guidance already given. I received an extremely helpful letter on the issue from the Minister and am anxious that part of it should be put on the record. I beg to move.