Education and Skills Bill

I sense that we are going through the motions slightly, having had an extremely long debate that went through all the arguments, so I shall simply recap what I said earlier. As the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, so rightly put it, we need many more carrots than sticks, and the whole emphasis of government policy is to provide more carrots for young people to participate. We believe that by doing so we will significantly improve participation rates; indeed the evidence already shows that those rates are improving. However, it is our view that no young person should be outside the education and training system before 18 unless there is some compelling reason which would constitute a reasonable excuse under Clause 39. As we have teased out the arguments more fully this evening, I am left wondering quite where the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, stands on this, as she and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, appeared to support the Government’s view that increased participation is a good thing. It is difficult for a politician to start making judgments on the quality of participation, and it is hard enough tracking the figures. If we assume that increased participation is a good thing, the question then arises—and the noble Baroness is sitting resolutely on the fence—whether increased participation is a good thing. The evidence is that having carrots and sticks together will increase participation, including the sticks. In an earlier debate I understood the noble Baroness to be saying that she accepted that sticks, as applied in legislation in other countries that I set out as operating on a similar basis to here, might improve participation. Is that then a price worth paying to improve participation? If the noble Baroness is saying that her party would settle for significantly lower rates of participation in return for not having the ultimate sanction of compulsion, then I would be glad if she said so on Report, because then we can have a straightforward argument about whether this country requires higher rates of participation if the next generation are going to be economically and socially successful. I shall make the argument, with all the power I can bring to this Despatch Box, that it is absolutely vital for the future of this country that as near to 100 per cent of young people as possible should be engaged in education and training. That investment will repay dividends many times over for them if they are engaged in education and training. As a Parliament we should not start permitting young people to drop out simply as a matter of free will when the evidence is that providing the courses and providing an ultimate sanction would encourage them to invest in their own education and training, which will repay dividends for them economically and socially.