Education and Skills Bill

I support what my noble friend on the Front Bench said. I do not intend to rehearse my lengthy objections to the idea of criminalising young people, the consequences of which were nicely—although that is entirely the wrong word—illustrated this week by the young man who was refused admission to UCL to study medicine, although he had superb qualifications, because of some misdemeanour when he was much younger. In general, we do not forgive criminal convictions until much later than we should. I challenge the Minister to get his department to publish its policy on employing ex-offenders. As I have said to him before, I have had trouble with his department on that. As it intends to criminalise young jobseekers, it would set an excellent example if it declared what its policy will be towards young people who emerge to ask them for a job with such a conviction or another conviction. The Minister should set an example to his colleagues in Whitehall on that. We also seem intent on starting young people off in life with a history with a credit reference agency as a result of non-payment of fines, as the result of having no money because they are entitled to only £40-odd a week from which to pay the fine. That does not seem to me to be especially helpful. Perhaps in his heart of hearts the Minister sees that we have ended up in the wrong position for the right reasons and that the Government ought to look again to find another way to do this. I very much hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench and those on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench will concur sufficiently that we shall have a joint effort to put into the Bill on Report. On my objection to these clauses standing part, I can reassure the Minister that I do not want him to go through every clause justifying them, although that was immensely helpful last time. I would like him to tell me something about Clauses 40 and 41. If a young person refuses to go into education, how can someone else choose the course of education and then compel that young person to go through it? How does that work? In my school career, no one ever succeeded in punishing me by making me do any constructive work. I had to write out lines often enough, but the idea that I should learn how to do long division better as a punishment did not work and I do not know anyone who has successfully tried it. How is a course to be chosen for a young person who does not want to do anything? How is he to be made to do it successfully? I would very much like to know the Minister’s thinking on that. To return to a subject that I raised earlier, to which I do not remember getting an answer, how does that process deal with the young Alan Sugar, who wants to get out there to start selling car aerials from the back of a van? Those people often turn out to run real businesses on a large scale because of their wish to start doing business—their natural understanding of business is very strong. How are those people, who do not want to start off being employed, but want to get out there and do it for themselves, to be accommodated in this structure and what penalties would a young Alan Sugar face if he tried to relive his early life?