Education and Skills Bill

I wish to speak to the Question whether Clause 21 shall stand part, which is grouped with these amendments. Much of the debate on the Bill centres on issues of compulsion as against willing co-operation—sticks and carrots were mentioned frequently last week. In Clause 21, we can see there may be unintended consequences, which could be foreseen and forestalled at this stage. I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, has just said about the messages coming from employer organisations. The figures show that young people are more likely to be working in small businesses, and that some 70 per cent of 16 to 17 year-olds in jobs without training work in firms with fewer than 50 employees. Three-quarters of those businesses have no human resource support, so any hiring, firing, recruiting, training or monitoring will be done by someone taking time out from their main job. Small businesses are an essential part of the national economy, and in the current climate, when times are particularly hard for them, they will naturally take actions to increase their profitability. You do not run a flourishing small business without being quite aware of the rules and regulations, and how you can work with them. The requirements of the Bill—specifically, within Clause 21—provide a significant disincentive to employ 16 to 17 year-olds. For instance, the cost of checking that the 16 or 17 year-old has, "““made appropriate arrangements for training or education””," which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, mentioned, will not always be straightforward. Indeed, the employer might well ask themselves whether they would be infringing the age discrimination law by asking a young person’s date of birth. There are various other factors, including that these young people rarely stay in a job for any length of time—often, only a few months—so there will be frequent employee turnover. Training programmes may vary, with delays in gaining an appropriate training opportunity, for instance, when the timings might not suit the working day so that employers may have to alter other work schedules or call on other employees to work more flexibly, to fit around the young person. Employers will need clear guidance on this clause. At its simplest, there will be additional administrative burdens. We had a government projection that a 10-minute check would be required. That seems optimistic, and a conservative estimate has been set that employers checking for any young person might accumulate some £8 million a year across all businesses. Indeed, there are higher estimates from calculating, using the hourly rate, the time spent on this additional monitoring which could be made earning money in the main course of the business. We are talking about a cohort of young people who may not have responded well, if at all, at school—that has come up in previous interventions from your Lordships—but who could learn valuable, on-the-job training and transferable life skills if they go into employment, even if that is not directly associated with formal qualifications and training. The demands of this clause could well close off some of those routes. If it is simpler to look elsewhere, employers cannot be blamed for being more attracted to employing 18 year-olds, or even migrant workers, rather than this cohort that carries additional burdens for them. The employer organisations the CBI and the IoD have expressed concerns about the impact of this clause. Little will be lost by removing the employers’ statutory obligation to check on appropriate education or training, but if the clause remains it could significantly affect the job prospects of some of the young people who need the most encouragement. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.