Education and Skills Bill

I do not accept that the two options that the Minister puts before me are the only two tenable in this situation. Let me be clear: I believe that, for most young people and for society as a whole, increasing their educational qualifications is a good thing. In a free society we can offer good things to many citizens, yet we should not force them to accept them at any particular moment. Despite the fact that I agree with the noble Lord’s objective, I feel that, while it is vital to upskill and increase the qualifications of as many members of society as we can, there is more than one way of skinning a cat. The Minister puts before me only two options: compulsion, or people deciding that they are not going to upskill or increase their qualifications. He suggests that I might for some reason think that a good thing. I do not, but there is a third option that we should do everything we can to encourage: to enable and to remove barriers for all our young citizens to increase their qualifications and get into the workforce as productive members of society, not least because, if they do not, they run the risk of being idle and then getting into the criminal justice system, which none of us wants. If a young person decides that they do not want to continue in some form of education and training between 16 and 18, it is not necessarily the case that they will never come back to education and training. They very well may. We are obliged to do everything in our power to convince them and make the case. One of the joys of debate in your Lordships’ House is that, on the whole, the Government do not get their business through unless they have won the argument. That is what I should like to see with young people. We should do everything that we can to provide the options and the support, and to ensure that the quality is right. We should also convince them that it is in their own interests to participate in some form of further education and training beyond the age of 16, because it is for their own good—most people ultimately have self-interest at heart. That is what we should want to see. I say in answer to the Minister’s question that I do not accept either of his options; I think that there is a third way, which is the direction in which the Government are moving. They are doing everything they can to provide the options and the support, and to ensure that people’s special needs are taken into consideration. However, we all need to see those firmly in place as an entitlement before any suggestion of compulsion. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said forcefully that it is the implementation, not the rhetoric or even the legislation, that matters most. We should like to see a continuation of all that. Let us see how well it works before one even considers compulsion. For the vast majority of young people, taking on one or other of these various options is good for them and for society. We do not accept that the only way to achieve that is compulsion, which is why we so strongly make these arguments. Clause 2 agreed to.