Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I certainly welcome the clause. First, I declare an interest. I am the president of a charity that provides boarding accommodation for blind and visually impaired children, nursery provision and schools up to the age of 16. We also have an extensive FE college for those aged from 16 to 19. That is a very expensive service. We have to provide not only in capital expenditure for a variety of needs—in our case, not only the blind and visually impaired but those with emotional learning difficulties and physical learning difficulties—but that requires supervision at night and even at weekends, if the youngsters cannot go to similar secure accommodation. I would hope that in any discussion with specialist colleges, the Government will recognise that the most effective way for a local authority to meet its obligations under the clause will be to use the specialist colleges. Local authorities will be very reluctant to build such boarding accommodation for 16 to 25 year-olds if they have to find the money themselves. They also have responsibility for people who are disadvantaged in the adult age range, and they may have their own priorities to deal with that. That is another expensive programme. We may need some amendment to the wording of the clause so that local authorities would first call on the specialist colleges, most of which are charities and most of which are in the private sector. They give remarkably good value. Several FE colleges have boarding accommodation. For example, nearly all the agricultural colleges around the country have boarding accommodation. That is because, first, the journey for youngsters may be 30 or 40 miles, which is a long journey. Secondly, if they are looking after animals, they have to get up at dawn, so they must have boarding accommodation. That should be recognised. That is not quite pertinent to the clause, but it will be an issue increasingly in future. I imagine that that will come under the new Skills Funding Agency, not local authorities, but I am sure that one consequence of the Bill going through will be a demand for more boarding accommodation, especially in rural areas, not just for children with disability or learning difficulties but for the diploma in environmental services. The Minister just said that she is very committed to diplomas. The diploma in environmental services, which covers agriculture, horticulture, viticulture, and so on, will almost certainly require boarding accommodation for most of the students that colleges hope to get. I hope that we may receive a positive answer from the Minister on both of those points.