Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

Fine. If the local authority "agrees with", it is getting into the interstices of a college and telling it, "We are going to fund this sort of course, and that is what you will provide". Not only that but, in order to "secure" it, it must ensure that the capacity that it has generated is not then used by people outside its area. That is what I am getting at in my amendment. The Government are placing a duty on local education authorities that will require them to interfere deeply with how individual colleges are run. The noble Lord has not disabused me of that at all. My Amendment 91E, to add the interests and views of the learners who are supposed to be provided for to subsection (3) of new Section 15ZA, has not been addressed at all. Nor has my Amendment 102B. I do not see how a local authority can, of its constitution, without something in statute, "have regard to" the interests of people outside its area. Just a duty to co-operate with other local authorities presumes that it, as part of its duty to its constituents, will have an interest in those pupils going outside its borders. This is not how local authorities have generally behaved in the past. For instance, in the transport provision made for students who wish to attend Greenhead College, co-operative arrangements on post-16 transport have been in place for some while. Do they extend to students who want to travel from Manchester to Greenhead? No. Local authorities have chosen not to co-operate in helping students to go outside their boundaries. We had in London some long while ago the Greenwich judgment about students travelling between one borough and another in order to get their ordinary education. That caused an immense ruckus and there are still continuing attempts by London local authorities to restrict access to their schools to pupils who live within the boundaries of the borough. I suppose that one could justify not allowing students to travel on the basis that they should not be consuming all the energy and transport fuel required to do it. It is not part of the pattern that local authorities want to provide or use facilities beyond their boundaries. It is not part of the pattern of education in this country that specialist provision is well used and celebrated by local education authorities. Many good specialist colleges find it extremely hard to come by students. The noble Lord is living in cloud-cuckoo-land if he thinks that the Stalinist-style co-operation that he is proposing will work in the best interests of students. However, I look forward to his magnum opus coming my way. I shall be able to read out large sections of it on Report. If no one else wants to intervene, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 91A withdrawn. Amendments 91B to 91E not moved.