Education Bill

My Lords, let me start on that fair point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and my noble friend. We intend to commence those support duties on local authorities and learning providers. The issue that we are considering today, which I will come back on, is the enforcement process. We accept that those support duties need to be commenced. The latest statistics show that we had 96.1 per cent of 16 year-olds and over 87 per cent of 17 year-olds participating in education or training at the end of 2010. That is a sign, which I know that the noble Baroness will welcome, that more young people are seeing the value of continuing their education and that the education and training sector is becoming more flexible in meeting their needs. We agree with the previous Government’s plans to raise the participation age to 17 in 2013 and 18 in 2015, which was the timescale set out in the Education and Skills Act 2008. We are committed to continuing that. We think that that timescale to which various bodies—local authorities, providers, schools and colleges—are working is sensible and gives schools, colleges and workplaces offering apprenticeships time to prepare. I recognise the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that this is a probing amendment to look into these points. I do not think that January 2012 is actually what she had in mind. I agree with her that we think that that is not a workable suggestion but that the timescale set out by the previous Government is the one to which we will continue to work. The amendment would also commence all the enforcement provisions in step at the same time as the leaving age was raised in one go. Those provisions would allow local authorities to issue attendance notices, bring young people before attendance panels, give out fixed penalty notices, and ultimately, as a last resort, prosecute young people in a criminal court. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said that she did not want to criminalise young people, and we certainly do not want to do so. That is our thinking behind delaying. We want young people to participate because they recognise the benefits that education and training will bring. As it stands, Clause 71 allows us to delay the commencement of the enforcement process, and we think that is the right way forward to give the system time to adapt. However, I want to underline that we do not intend to remove the enforcement provisions altogether, which I hope will reassure the noble Baroness. We will keep this under annual review. We hope that participation will increase because of the quality of the training on offer and because young people increasingly see its benefits, but if necessary we will commence all or some of the enforcement provisions. The pupil premium and targeted financial support via 16-to-19 bursaries will help ensure that young people are supported to continue learning. We have a process in place, run by local authorities, that ensures that 16 and 17 year-olds receive an offer of a suitable place in learning and, as we have already discussed, we are implementing all Professor Alison Wolf’s recommendations to ensure that vocational routes generally are of high quality. We are committed to raising the participation age. We will do it on the timetable laid out by the previous Government. We are not removing the enforcement process but are just delaying its introduction. We will commence the support duties that the noble Baroness raised, we will review the need for enforcement on an annual basis and we will ensure that it is introduced if that is appropriate. With those reassurances, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, will feel able to withdraw her amendment.