Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 128: 128: Clause 41, page 23, line 13, at end insert ““, or ( ) in the case of a young person who is incapable of following a course leading to a qualification for reasons of mental health or mental capacity, in the course of employment, either full or part-time, with full job support.”” The noble Baroness said: I rise to move Amendment No. 128 and to give my support to some of the amendments that my noble friend will speak to as part of this group. The intention behind Amendment No. 128 is not, as we have sometimes previously debated, to exclude any category of young person from the provisions of the Bill, but rather to extend the description of accredited education and training to one small and important group of young people. Once or twice in Committee we heard reference to the Rose project. Some of us were privileged to meet the young people who were being helped by the project, thanks to the efforts of my noble friend Lady Verma. We met three quite amazing young people and their dedicated guides and mentors from Havering College of Further and Higher Education. The Rose project has taken young people who were, because of their mental capacity, absolutely incapable of learning to read and write. These were people at the very lowest range of mental competence. One young woman, moving in her vivacity and enjoyment of life, was described by her father as having been completely withdrawn before she became involved in the project, her head permanently hanging down, incapable of more than minimal speech and totally uninterested in life. What had made that difference? The project had given her well-structured support in a job. Starting with only four hours a week, and with someone permanently at her side in the early stages, she had gradually moved up so that the next thing she wanted—she told us with a great giggle—was to work full-time in Sainsbury’s. I pay full tribute to Sainsbury’s because it has taken on several of these young people. The manager of the store in which Alexandra worked told us that no allowance was made for her and that she was doing a proper job. However, what was crucial was the structured job support she was being given by the lecturers from the college of education. Alexandra and the two young men we met from the project are never going to follow an accredited course in the formal sense or pass an exam, but their lives have been turned around by this project. Surely we should be able to incorporate such projects into the description of what is acceptable and would meet the requirements of the Bill. We should not exclude these young people and refuse to include them as part of the 16 to 18 group who are to have provision made for them; rather we should say that the kind of structured job support they are receiving could be included. Such young people would themselves feel included, and crucially funding would become available to allow wonderful schemes such as the Rose project to be rolled out more widely in further education colleges in order to support many more young people in this category. Alexandra’s father later told us—I use his phrase—that she would literally have no life if this project had not come about. We could help hundreds or even more young people in this extreme category of low mental capacity to turn their lives around and thus become productive members of society. That is such a wonderful dream and is a perfectly proper definition to include in this clause which describes the nature of education and training. The Rose project does not meet any of the provisions in Clause 41, but to me seems to meet entirely what the Government are trying to do. I beg to move.