Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 15: 15: Clause 2, page 1, line 20, at end insert ““, or ( ) have signed, and be participating in, a learning and support contract entered into with a local education authority to provide personalised support leading to future participation in accredited education or training.”” The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 50 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Sharp of Guildford. I will also make a brief comment about the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, Amendment No. 56, which is in the same group. Our two amendments would widen the options that the local authority has to offer a young person by adding a learning and support contract to the opportunities that the young person can take up in order to fulfil the duty to participate. These learning and support contracts are very important. They contain a tailored package of support, as well as specifying the education element. This should enable a young person to take advantage of the right that we all in this Committee want them to have: the opportunity to develop their learning and skills. These contracts also involve their parents or carers. This is important, since the parents or carers can keep a young person motivated. Motivation, as we all know, is all, if you want to succeed. A learning and support contract does not only have those two important elements; it is a two-way street as regards commitment, concerning those who participate in it. The local authority undertakes to provide certain services. The young person undertakes to take part in the educational training and accept the support to enable them to do it. This is the sort of entitlement to ensure that no one, however needy or difficult their requirements, needs to lose out. That is why the amendments are supported by the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, as well as Barnardo’s, Rainer and the Special Education Consortium. Such a contract should always be tried before any enforcement procedure is commenced. We will debate that issue later in our discussions. It is the sort of intervention that should be commenced as early as possible—not just when enforcement triggers it—and before attitudes are entrenched. It would help to rebalance a bill which leans far too far in the direction of compulsion and penalties. No amount of papers entitled, Raising Expectations, can correct that. The Bill contains any number of ““reasonable excuses”” for not participating. These could be excuses for the less committed local authority to get out of providing the support necessary. We do not really want to have to rely on those; they could mean that a lot of young people not participating could easily do so, given the right package of help from the local authority. The idea of learning and support contracts is a proven one. It is used by many organisations in the voluntary sector. There are even activity and learning agreements being piloted by Connexions partnerships. These have had encouraging results, as the Government announced fairly recently. Many of Barnardo’s services for young people have an alternative education component because the child has been excluded from school. That organisation has found that agreements that address the underlying difficulties give them the opportunity to re-engage and often lead young people back into the mainstream eventually. Rainer does similar work with homeless young people—those leaving care or young offenders. It has the same experience. Both organisations believe that enforcement should never be used on a child with unmet needs. One of the purposes of the amendments is to get a clear undertaking from the Minister that that will never happen. Spelling out the agreements in guidance would of course be welcome, but, if they are to become routine, they must be put in the Bill. I have tried to get some costings, and there appear to be major cost benefits. In 2001, the DfES estimated that the average cost of a NEET—not in education, employment or training—was about £5,300 in public spending and £5,500 lost from taxes not paid and economic impact not made. Those are the most recent figures that I could get but the costs are probably greater and the loss from taxes and economic impact probably also greater. This means that effectively engaging a young person in education, perhaps in work and training or in apprenticeship, could save more than £10,000 per year. I believe that that is a saving worth making. But the main argument is not an economic one. It is a matter of ensuring that no young person loses out for lack of the appropriate package of support and that no enforcement will take place until they have been offered the right package. We have considerable sympathy with the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on the obligation to fund courses for which presumably there is a demand. We would like to listen to his arguments before definitely making up our minds about his amendment, which is grouped with mine. I beg to move.