Education and Skills Bill

It is precisely on that point that I will come back to the noble Lord. There are very limited circumstances in which such offences could conceivably be recorded on the police national computer. Even taking the tiny subset of cases that could end up in the youth courts with a conviction, only a tiny subset of those could conceivably be recorded on the police national computer, and there would be particular reasons related to the association of those offences with other offences that may result in a record on the database. That is my understanding, but I shall specify later the precise circumstances in which that could take place. Let me stress again that it is always at the discretion of the local authority whether to take enforcement action. Any action in respect of failure to comply with an attendance notice or in respect of a penalty notice would be at the discretion of the local authority. Young people would never progress automatically to the next stage of the process, and they would always have the opportunity to appeal. Clause 46 sets out all the restrictions on the circumstances in which a local authority can decide to move to the final stage of the enforcement process, which is prosecution in the youth court. The young person must have been given a fixed-penalty notice and not paid it, and they would have had the opportunity to appeal at that stage. The local authority must have consulted the attendance panel, which in turn must have given the young person the opportunity to explain their circumstances. These are necessary checks and balances to ensure that enforcement never proceeds inappropriately or without full consideration, and that is why we believe that these clauses should stand part of the Bill. Amendments Nos. 152, 153 and 154, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, concern the nature of the fixed-penalty notices. We agree that the penalty on young people should always be appropriate, but it would not make sense to specify an amount for the fixed penalty in primary legislation, as this would make it unnecessarily inflexible. We intend the legislation to be in place for many years, so accepting the noble Baroness’s amendment would mean that to alter the penalty we would have to amend primary legislation. Putting on a limit in primary legislation without consulting would not be appropriate. We will set the amount of the penalty notice in regulations, which will be laid before the House. We have previously indicated that we think the fixed-penalty notice could be in the region of £50, and we will fully consider the amount closer to implementation. I can reassure the noble Baroness that we would want it to be significantly less than the maximum fine available at the youth court stage. As part of this consideration, we will look carefully at the circumstances many young people are in, including their income and the level of financial support provided in order to fix an appropriate financial penalty. I agree with what I believe is the intention behind Amendment No. 155: to offer additional protection to the small number of young people who enter the enforcement system and who are not re-engaged before that system reaches the stage of prosecution. This protection is important because we recognise that young people are more vulnerable than adults. It is right that the youth court is the most appropriate forum in the rare cases where such enforcement action is required. I can reassure the noble Baroness that under the current youth court justice system, in the vast majority of cases, a person below the age of 18 would not appear before an adult criminal court because they had failed to comply with an attendance notice. The amendment is therefore not necessary. I am sorry, that constitutes a slight correction to what I said earlier. Apparently it would be technically possible for a young person to be subject to an adult fine enforcement system, but in practice we think it is highly unlikely that that would ever happen. It could arise only if a young person received a fine from the youth court prior to the age of 18 and defaulted on the payment after reaching that age. We believe that this would occur in only a tiny number of cases. However, in no case could such action lead to imprisonment. On that basis, I commend these clauses to the Committee.