Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I very much hope that I can offer the reassurances that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is looking for. Perhaps I may walk through the notes that I have. However, first, I agree that young people’s learning needs, including any special educational needs, must continue to be met in a consistent way on their transfer from custody back into the community. That is the rationale behind including the home responsibilities in the Bill. The general duties on local authorities to ensure that education and training are available for all children and young people in their area under Sections 13 and 14 of the Education Act 1996 and new Section 15ZA will apply to young people on their release from juvenile detention, as they do to all young people in a local authority area. Local authorities also have a duty to meet the special educational needs of people in their area under Part IV of that Act. I am arguing that the amendments are, as the noble Lord suggested, unnecessary. The Bill will help to ensure that no young person is missed by a local authority on their release from juvenile custody, and will help to ensure the successful transition back into education and training in the community by placing the duty on home authorities to promote the fulfilment of the person’s learning potential. I am afraid that I am coming back to the statutory guidance, but we will make it explicit in that guidance that this includes the need to have regard to any special educational needs that a person may have. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, was concerned about possible disagreements between local authorities. I might have to think about that. A young person can only be in one place at any one time. If a home authority does not agree with what a host authority has said about special educational needs, when the person comes home the home authority’s view would, I imagine, trump the earlier view taken by the other authority. However, I am happy to think further about whether I have got that right. As I said, we will make it explicit in statutory guidance that regard must be had to a person’s special educational needs on release and return to the home authority area. For persons in juvenile custody who had the SEN statement prior to detention, Amendment 135 would require host authorities to notify other authorities of the person’s release at least 14 days in advance, as the noble Lord explained. One has the expectation that 14 days is the latest that they would leave it. However—there is always a "however", I suppose—there may be some exceptional circumstances in which a person’s release date is not known two weeks in advance, which would mean that the amendment would be impossible to comply with, although obviously we would see that as the exception rather than the rule. What we meant by "exceptional circumstances" would need to be picked up in statutory guidance. Instead, we will make it clear in statutory guidance that home local authorities should be notified as soon as possible about a person’s expected release date from their custody. This is critical to enabling effective planning for the person’s education and training on their release back into the community. The information transfer provisions in the Bill and the facility of the electronic system will also help to ensure that educational information about the person is properly transferred and used to inform the longer-term education and resettlement planning. I hope that, with that reassurance, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment. Finally, the noble Lord asked whether this applies to Wales. These are mirror provisions—I think that that is the correct term—so they will apply through the Welsh Assembly Government in Wales.