Education and Skills Bill

I shall first deal with the content of the amendments and then with some of the questions raised. I can give absolute satisfaction to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, in respect of her Amendments Nos. 115A and 116B. The word ‘may’ in Clauses 22 and 27 already means that the local authority has discretion about whether to use the enforcement powers conferred on it by these clauses. There is no need to add the words ““if it so wishes””. Amendment No. 116 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, limits the circumstances in which local authorities could take action against an employer who was not fulfilling its duty. We believe it would introduce new bureaucracy, not reduce it. At the moment, where employers are not providing accredited training, they will be required to check that 16 to 17 year-olds who wish to work for more than 20 hours a week are participating in accredited education or training. If an employer was not fulfilling its duty, this amendment would limit the circumstances in which local authorities could take action against it only to those cases where the failure to check concerned employees resident within their area—we are getting into the A and B of the noble Lord, Lord Elton. Any failure by the employer to check in respect of new employees resident outside the local authority’s area would not be covered. Although they could contact the employees’ local authorities and ask them to take action, if there were a large number of employees to whom the failure to check applied, that could be a very bureaucratic and time-consuming task for the local authorities, which would potentially need to contact a number of other authorities, having first ascertained in which authorities the young people were resident, and for the employer, which would then need to respond to penalty notices issued by more than one authority, and in urban areas, that could potentially be several authorities. This amendment would unnecessarily complicate the system, which is designed to ensure that employers play their part in enabling and encouraging young people to participate in education or training. I make two points on Amendment 116A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, which would remove the reference to, "““so far as is reasonable””," from the requirement on the employer to permit the young person to participate in any arrangements for education or training, should they want to change arrangements after they start work. First—this also deals with the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe—Clause 25 concerns only arrangements for education or training entered into after a young person has started the employment in question; they are to do with changes in training arrangements. For those who are being employed with training arrangements as part of their employment, the judgments will be made by employers as to what are the appropriate training arrangements at the point of employment. Those considerations come into effect only for changes to training arrangements made after the young person has started employment. In respect of changes in arrangements made for education or training after a young person has started employment, it is right that a reasonable judgment should be reached on, first, the needs of the young person to fulfil the duty to participate; secondly, the circumstances of the business; and, thirdly, the effect of the young person's absence from work on the running of that business. The reference to, "““so far as is reasonable””," in that context implies that the employer should be reasonable in seeking to accommodate the young person's change of education or training arrangements with reference to the need for them to participate, alongside the circumstances of the business and the effect of the young person’s absence from work on the running of that business. I should have thought that the House would want us to see that judgments were reasonable, taking account of the needs of employers, for precisely the reasons to do with the needs of employers that have been rehearsed throughout our debates. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked how a local authority would know that an employer was not doing its duty. He said that he thought that might be necessary to examine tax returns and Inland Revenue data of one kind or another. The three main ways that a local authority will have that information are, firstly, the returns that all schools make to Connexions at the end of year 11 on their subsequent plans. As a result of those returns, Connexions at the moment and local authorities in the future, know about proposed destinations, including employment destinations, of almost all people. That could give them the information that they need about whether a young person is engaged in sufficient education or training. The second source of information will be engagement with young people themselves who are not participating and discovering, for example, that they are employed full-time without training. The third is through contacting employers in the course of other functions, where they may discover the young people are working without participating in learning. There are established routes, of which the most important is the fact that Connexions already knows the proposed destinations of almost all year-11 leavers, which would enable a local authority, where it regarded it as reasonable to do so, to take enforcement action against an employer. On the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, as to who adjudicates the enforcement of Clause 25, the local education authority would issue an enforcement notice if the employer did not fulfil their Clause 25 duty. An enforcement notice may require the employer to vary the terms and conditions of employment, or permit the employee to take time off. I hope that that deals with the issues raised.