Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I am grateful that the Minister has conceded that the Bill has been improved in this area too by consideration in Committee and in the other place. Lords amendment 56 inserts a new clause, entitled ““Provision of transport etc for persons of sixth form age: duty to have regard to section 15ZA duty””, which says:"““In section 509AB(3) of the Education Act 1996 (provision of transport etc for persons of sixth form age in England: matters to which LEAs must have regard)…insert…what they are required to do under section 15ZA(1) in relation to persons of sixth form age””." In other words, the Bill places a new duty on local education authorities to set out in a transport policy statement the arrangements that they will make for those learners aged 19 to 24 inclusive who may have a learning difficulty. The amendments will allow the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance to cover not only the new transport policy statement for learners aged 19 to 24 with learning difficulties and disabilities, which is introduced in proposed new section 508G of the 1996 Act, but the wider adult transport duty to which the Minister referred. The amendments are also intended to make a link between the local authority commissioning duty outlined in the Bill and the sixth-form and adult transport duties, so that local authorities do not consider their transport arrangements—particularly their arrangements for those aged 19 to 24 with learning difficulties and disabilities—in isolation from their new responsibilities for commissioning education and training provision. In essence, this is about linking transport to the rest of the provision, and that is critically important. When the Bill was first discussed in Committee here, we felt that that link had not been sufficiently well made, and we argued—here and in the Lords—that the Bill needed strengthening in that regard. We are happy that the Government have accepted the Lords amendments to ensure that students with disabilities have the same rights of complaint about transport issues as 16 to 18-year-olds. That is a practical and sensible change to the Bill. It is not a matter for partisan debate or a matter of contention, so I shall not detain the House any longer.