Education and Skills Bill

I am grateful for that response, which is on the record and will be helpful to those outside. Let me return to Lord Adonis's comments in his letter of 1 July. In that letter he said:"““the enforcement system against employers is not a criminal one, and would culminate in a financial penalty recoverable through the County Court””." The point to note is that we are talking about a civil penalty. For employers, the punishment for not complying with the Bill—that is, for not providing training or time off for training—is a civil one, whereas the punishment for the 16 or 17-year-old who does not participate is a criminal one. It is the fact that the Bill seeks to criminalise young people that has raised so many concerns. We all share the aspiration of increasing participation in education or training to the age of 18, but how will it help a young person if he or she sets out on their career saddled with a criminal record? The Children's Rights Alliance for England, the British Youth Council and the Association of School and College Leaders all oppose the provisions that introduce criminal sanctions, even though they might support the general aims of the Bill. The Prince's Trust, which has vast experience of helping the very group the Bill is principally aimed at, is concerned about criminalising young people. In her evidence to the Public Bill Committee, Martina Milburn, the trust's chief executive, said:"““the bulk of the 40,000 people who we worked with last year had issues with drugs and alcohol. What do you do with a young person who is already going down the path of taking too many drugs and drinking too much and who just says, 'I'm not going to do it' and disappears?...Do you increasingly criminalise young people…or do you find some way of trying to reach them and sort out some of their issues?””––[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 16, Q36.]" My noble Friend Lady Morris fought valiantly in another place to try to find a way for the Bill's objectives to be achieved without recourse to criminal law. On Third Reading she said:"““while we share the Government's ambition to see each and every 17 and 18-year old receive the best education or training to help them realise their full potential…Our desire in all this was to ensure that no young person received a criminal record simply because they were disaffected with the system, especially at such a critical age and stage of their life, when a criminal record could be disastrous.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 November 2008; Vol. 705, c. 556.]" The Government have argued that penalties cannot be imposed except by using the criminal process, but it seems that civil penalties can be imposed on employers, whether they be individuals or companies. The Government say that the civil procedures are not designed for those under the age of 18, but again, I am not sure whether that is true. The county courts are very used to dealing with rent and money issues affecting 16 and 17-year-olds. The Government also say that if a civil penalty is not paid, the ultimate sanction is jail, which the youth court process that the Bill uses cannot resort to. However, most civil penalties are enforced through attachment of earnings orders. It cannot be beyond the wit of parliamentary draftsmen to ensure that those are the only remedies in law for ensuring the payment of civil penalties of £200 or less in such circumstances. On the provisions concerning parliamentary staff, which the Minister mentioned and which the amendments would change, it is clearly right that all the duties and rights that young employees generally have should also apply to staff in the House of Commons and another place. As Lord Adonis said in Committee in another place:"““It is right that this employment should count for the purposes of the duty to participate—and the duties to check that a young person is in educational training…However, it would not be appropriate for local authorities to have powers of enforcement against this House or another place.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 July 2008; Vol. 703, c. 1424.]" I take the point, but it might be helpful if the Minister could explain why that would not be appropriate. Does that also mean, for instance, that the House of Commons authorities cannot be prosecuted for breaches of health and safety regulations or for the standards of hygiene in the kitchen? It would be helpful to have an answer to the latter point before 8 o'clock this evening or before any of us pops out for a cup of tea and a muffin in the canteen.