Education and Skills Bill

I support the group of amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton. They have underlined all the discussion that we have had on the Bill from day one. We have gone into enormous detail because we are all worried about the compulsion aspect and potential criminalisation. For that reason alone, if this group of amendments and the following group fail and we still have the potential criminalisation, we must look at every method to entitle the young person not to end up as a criminal. I referred earlier, as did the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, to the young man to whom Imperial College extended an offer and then removed it. He is an absolute example of someone whom we should support, but the rules as they exist do not allow it. Yet here we are busily en route to making criminals and giving records to a lot of young people who would not otherwise get them. We are moving towards the last day of debate in Committee, which is in about a week. I very much hope that the Minister will give serious attention to what lies behind all this discussion. Above all, I should like to emphasise one thing, on which I suspect that there will be further amendments: if we are getting into a position where a young person has to justify himself, there must be a right of appeal and advocates to speak on his behalf.