Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 74: 74: Clause 14, page 8, line 5, leave out ““exercise its functions under this Part”” and insert ““provide advice in relation to careers, education or training”” The noble Baroness said: I wish also to speak to the other amendments in the group standing in my name. This group continues the theme of data protection. The information collected must be used only as strictly required; it should not be used to coerce or bully people. We have included amendments that would prevent an LEA using it to enforce the duty to participate. Personal details should not be passed to local authorities so that they can become tools of oppression. That might sound overdramatic, but we have heard stories in the media recently—to which the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, referred on the previous group of amendments—about the eagerness that some local authorities have shown to use draconian measures to deal with relatively minor infractions. While the reported cases are extreme examples, it is a good idea to state in the Bill what the information collected by local authorities may be used for. We have sought to limit the use to which such information may be put by introducing amendments that would restrict the supply of information to simply enabling or assisting the provision of, "““advice in relation to careers, education or training””," which, after all, is the ultimate goal of the Bill. Clause 15 gives the Secretary of State the power to supply social security information about a young person to a local education authority. Clause 16 lists the public bodies that can supply information. Our amendments would ensure that the Secretary of State, or the relevant person, supplied data only if both parties regarded the provision of such information to be proportionate to the aims of the LEA, as defined in the Bill. This would add an extra layer of protection to the sharing of information. I beg to move.