Education and Skills Bill

I shall reflect on the noble Baroness’s remarks in respect of the letters that can be provided by colleges. Obviously if they were to provide this information, it would make it immediately apparent to employers whether the full range of obligations were being met by the young people in question. However, our concern is to keep the burden on employers to a minimum, and the judgment we have made sensibly holds to the middle ground on the issue: it is a requirement to check that young people are engaged in or have appropriate arrangements in place to be engaged in education or training. That is a sensible step. Actually to require them to ascertain the number of hours would be a step too far.