Education and Skills Bill

The good judgment of the LSE shines through. I am always mindful when I listen to my noble friend Lady Morris, who rightly highlighted the importance of lifelong learning, of the words of my great hero, Mr Gladstone, who, on forming his fourth Administration at the age of 83, declared that he had been a learner all his life. There were some people who believed in lifelong learning in the 1890s; the rest of us have been catching up during the past century, which is absolutely right. By instilling a greater culture of learning among teenagers, the Bill will transform our learning culture further up the age range. There is a great deal in it about entitlements to education and training beyond the age of 18, which will further instil a culture of lifelong learning in the nation. I could not have agreed more with the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, when she said that carrots work better than sticks. The problem is that when Parliament legislates for sticks it needs to do so in great detail. Therefore, large parts of the Bill are preoccupied with how the sticks work. That has to be the case, because if Parliament is putting in place penalties, it has to be very precise and set out in appropriate detail how enforcement regimes will work. However, the emphasis in all our policies is overwhelmingly on the carrots and at vast public expense we are providing them. Perhaps I may run through some of those carrots that we are providing now and those that we will provide up to 2015 when the duty fully bites. We have introduced the education maintenance allowances: £500 million of public money per year will spent on giving direct public support to 16 to 18 year-olds from less affluent backgrounds so that they have the financial resources to be able to participate in education or training. Five hundred and twenty-eight thousand young people benefited from EMA payments in 2006-07. Around 45 per cent of learners in full-time education receive education maintenance allowances. Our evaluation of EMAs indicated that they have already led to increases in participation nationally of 3.8 per cent for 16 year-olds and 4.1 per cent for 17 year-olds. I could go through the associated statistics if noble Lords wished. I think that there is general agreement in all parts of the Committee that this is a big and worthwhile reform, whose effects will feed through more substantially in the coming years. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, referred to diplomas. Diplomas represent a revolution in the availability of appropriate qualifications, and are targeted particularly at those groups who have not been well served by the school system. My noble friend Lady Morris asked me to elucidate rather more our thinking on her first question, which was how we will affect the culture of learning in schools. If we were dragooning 16 to 18 year-olds to sit in the same classes, doing the same subjects as in the past, and if they had to sit unwillingly in AS-level and A-level classes in which they had neither the aptitude nor inclination to participate, I would agree that, culturally, it would be immensely ill-advised. However, that is not what we mean when we talk about the expansion of learning and training opportunities; we mean a much wider range of learning and training opportunities, including a big expansion in vocation-oriented courses—many of which simply do not exist—and in apprenticeship opportunities. We are introducing diplomas this year. From September, diplomas will be available in construction and the built environment, creative and media, engineering, information technology, society, health and development. They are large areas of employment which desperately need well accredited vocational qualifications. From September 2009, diplomas will be available in business administration and finance, environmental and land-based studies, hair and beauty studies, hospitality, manufacturing and product design. From September 2010, they will be available in public services, retail business, sport and active leisure, and travel and tourism. And from September 2011, they will be available in humanities, languages and sciences. The diplomas will available at three levels—not merely at higher and advanced levels but, crucially, also at foundation level, which is equivalent to five GCSEs at grades D to G. They will be targeted particularly at those young people with whom—to echo the noble Baroness, Lady Morris—the education system has not succeeded by the age of 16. She will know that I agree with her entirely about the importance of literacy and numeracy in primary schools. We are straining every sinew to improve the quality of education, literacy and numeracy available at primary school. I join her in regarding it as a failure of the education system that there remains a large group of children which, despite the improvements in recent years, has not reached the standards that it needs to reach by age 11. However, we cannot give up on them. We need to continue to provide opportunities for them, including beyond the age of 16. Apprenticeships have a vital role in providing fit-for-purpose opportunities for young people beyond the age of 16, particularly those who are not well suited to continuing full time in the classroom. By 2013, which is when the first of the continuing obligations to remain in education and training up to the age of 17 will apply, we will ensure that an apprenticeship place is available for all suitably qualified young people, with significant growth in apprenticeships for older learners as well. This will involve funding for apprenticeships increasing by almost a quarter between now and 2010-11 to over £1 billion a year. By 2020, we aim to deliver over 250,000 apprenticeship starts and 190,000 successful completions. That is based on significant increases in recent years in completion rates, thanks to the work of all those engaged in apprenticeships, including employers. In 2006-07, these rates reached an all-time high of 63 per cent, compared to 24 per cent in 2001-02. It is not simply that the volume of apprenticeships will increase dramatically, targeted particularly at the groups that we are talking about this afternoon; we are paying greater attention to the quality of apprenticeships being provided and to all the factors that are crucial to seeing that young people complete them. Everything that we are doing is geared towards improving the carrots, in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Perry. Not only is there the financial support, but the information, advice and guidance on offer to young people has been significantly expanded. This year, the Connexions service budget will be £469 million. There is provision for £467 million over the following two years. This is almost double the pre-Connexions career service budget of £240 million. The Connexions service is particularly aimed at those in danger of falling out of education and training and provides targeted support for them. This is a further and important carrot in the system. So there are the EMAs; the information, advice and guidance; and the range and quality of courses available in education and training that we seek to provide. We believe that those carrots, if I may use the noble Baroness’s term, will continue to significantly increase the proportion in education and training. The statistics that we have at the moment are encouraging. The latest figures, published last week, show that the proportion of 16 to 18 year-olds in education and training in 2007 was 78.7 per cent, an increase of 1.6 per cent in one year alone and the highest rate of participation in education and training among 16 to 18 year-olds ever. The proportion of young people NEET fell by a full percentage point, from 10.4 per cent to 9.4 per cent. The proportion of young people NEET fell substantially at all three ages: from 6.7 per cent to 5.4 per cent at 16; 9.8 per cent to 9.1 per cent at 17; and from 14.7 per cent to 13.7 per cent at 18. All of the indicators are in the right direction, but we have further to go. That is why we are investing so much in all the additional opportunities that I set out. Ultimately, with all those changes—many are in train at the moment and demonstrating success and there are also those that I have described in terms of future policy—is it right to say that there is this obligation, subject to the flexibility in Clause 39 that I described earlier, on young people to participate? We believe that it is. I will make two points concerning this. The first is that this is now increasingly in line with international practice. The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, referred to Germany and its record in education and training. Over the past 100 years, we should have done more to emulate this record; we would have had fewer productivity and education problems. Germany has a compulsory education and training age of 18. It is ranked eighth in the OECD for participation at 17. Belgium has a compulsory education and training age of 18. It is first in education and training participation in the OECD. The Netherlands has an education and training age of 18. It is fifteenth in education and training participation at 17. The United States has an education and training participation age of 17. It is seventeenth. We are twenty-fourth, behind all those which have higher ages at the moment. We often look to Australia and Canada, as they are English-speaking countries with educational and training traditions similar to ours, and their models of reform. In both countries, the more advanced states—they both have federal systems—are going down the road that we are setting out in the Bill this afternoon. Western Australia legislated in 2005 to raise the education and training participation age and saw a significant increase in participation as a result. In the first year that the age was raised, participation rose from 80 per cent to 98 per cent for those in the year beyond compulsory education. That legislation has an enforcement regime, including fines for non-compliance. Those penalties, I am told, have not yet been used, but they are in the legislation for precisely the reason that we had them in our legislation, which is to provide an ultimate sanction and, therefore, an incentive for young people to participate. This is also the trend in Canada, a system that has much culturally in common with our own. In Ontario, the largest Canadian province, legislation raised the school leaving age to 18 in December 2006. It also provides a framework for an expanded range of opportunities tailored to student needs and interests, and it includes a sanctions regime. The sanctions regime can only commence when there is a broader range of provision in place for 16 and 17 year-olds. So, again, the ultimate stick is only to go hand-in-hand with the big expansion in the carrots available. The trend of policy in Canada is in our direction, too. Finally—I have spoken for far too long—I come to the discretion left to local authorities. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said that it was wrong to allow unfettered discretion to a local authority in the ultimate enforcement of engagement in education or training beyond the age of 16, from 2013. The whole of Chapter 5 of Part 1 of the Bill sets out a regime that gives appeal rights and requires local authorities to behave within a framework of due process. In our earlier debate, I referred to Clause 39, which provides that local authorities can only act in respect of individuals who do not have a reasonable excuse for not participating. This is subject to a requirement that the local authority must take, "““all reasonable steps to secure that relevant support is offered to the person, and""(b) may not give the notice””—" an enforcement notice— "““unless satisfied that the person has been afforded an opportunity to take advantage of the support offered””." Clause 43 sets appeal arrangements in respect of attendance notices, including the requirement for appeals panels to be set up. Clause 47 sets out the regime for penalty notices that may, ultimately, follow attendance notices. In Clause 48, there are, again, appeal arrangements set out concerning these penalty notices. So, far from giving unfettered discretion to local authority offices, there is an elaborate process set out in the Bill. This safeguards the proper rights of young people in respect of any enforcement action taken. It also gives them ample opportunities to contest any decisions taken. I must stress again that this system will have failed if widespread enforcement action is required. It will only succeed if the carrots are the predominant means by which young people participate between 16 and 18. It is the joy of learning and willing participation that we seek. The evidence that we have so far is that, if we provide young people with the correct incentives and the appropriate range of opportunities, they wish to engage and regard it as a joy. If we continue to expand those opportunities in the way I have described, we will only be faced with a tiny number of issues to do with enforcement by 2013.