Education and Skills Bill

I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 100 and 109 in this group, which stand in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Walmsley. Amendment No. 100 seeks to add the Border and Immigration Agency to the list in Clause 16(2). Clause 16(1) states: "““Any of the persons or bodies mentioned in subsection (2) may supply information about a person to a local education authority in England for the purpose of enabling or assisting the authority to exercise its functions under this Part””." As we know, the aim is to build up the Connexions database so that it can keep track of young persons in education and training for whom it is responsible. During the passage of the Children Bill in 2004 we talked at length about the role of the Border and Immigration Agency in relation to young people—often unaccompanied minors—who arrived in this country as asylum seekers. We discussed whose responsibility they were and what happened to them. Given how many immigrants from many countries have arrived in this country over the past few years, among whom are young people crossing our borders and settling in this country, it seems appropriate for the Border and Immigration Agency to be listed among those who supply information so that young people of the relevant age coming from abroad are known about and tracked. If we are requiring young people between the ages of 16 and 18 to attend school or a further education college or to work as an apprentice and have off-the-job training, it should apply as much to those coming in from abroad as to those who are born and grow up in this country. It is necessary that such data are made available to local authorities in order to maintain a fully comprehensive database. Amendment No. 109 applies to Clause 17 and is purely probing. It questions who is included as a service ““provider””. It refers also to Clause 54(1), which is rather vague as to who the service provider is, referring to ““such services as it””—the local education authority— "““considers appropriate to encourage, enable or assist the effective participation of those persons in education or training””." Does that mean just the information exchange between education and training providers, or does it include the wider providers of support services? In particular, does it include PCTs and child and adolescent mental health services? PCTs are, after all, named as one of the partners in Section 10 of the Children Act, and it might be appropriate if PCTs were included here. This is purely a probing amendment. How wide does ““service provider”” in Clause 17 really go?