Education and Skills Bill

I strongly support my noble friend Lady Perry in her amendment and I should like to speak to the amendments tabled in my name in this group. Those of us who were privileged to attend the meeting arranged by my noble friend Lady Verma with representatives of the Rose project were incredibly touched by the dedication of those running the charity, by the support of the local council and businesses, and most of all by the courage and determination of the young people themselves. It was clear that just to work out which bus to catch to go to work was a major achievement and that it would take more than two years for these young people to work up to the required hours of education or training. We should value what such young people can achieve rather than be too prescriptive. For these reasons, I fully support my noble friend’s amendment. Clause 42 establishes attendance panels in each local authority to hear appeals by young people who have been issued with attendance notices. Amendments Nos. 131 and 132 are probing amendments intended to elicit information on how the Government envisage the composition of these panels, while Amendments Nos. 134 and 135 ask how independent they will be. It might be perceived as a conflict of interest if such panels involve members of the LEA against whom the appeal was being made. Can the Minister give the Committee some reassurance on this point. Amendment No. 136 would prevent Clause 42 coming into force until the Secretary of State produces an estimate of the cost of these panels. The Bill will place an increasing burden of responsibility on local authorities, but will not necessarily provide the requisite extra funding. If panels turn out to be overly cumbersome and difficult to fund, that may have the undesirable effect of slowing up appeals. Amendment No. 137 probes what the grounds of appeal might be, and whether they include the availability of suitable training provision. Amendment No. 140 seeks to ensure that there is no undue delay for a young person to make their case before an attendance panel. Given the short time during which the duty to participate applies, it seems sensible to make the bureaucracy as expeditious as possible, if that is not a contradiction in terms. The purpose of Amendment No. 157 is to ensure that regulations are introduced to direct both the procedure of making appeals and the hearing of such appeals. As drafted, the clause states that the Secretary of State may make regulations about both the procedures for appeals and, "““the powers of an attendance panel””," in hearing appeals. The Secretary of State could, therefore, decide not to publish such regulations, nor to lay them before Parliament for scrutiny and debate. On matters that are clearly judicial or quasi-judicial, there should be clear rules which Parliament scrutinises in some form. The amendment simply replaces the word ““may”” with ““must””, to turn a power into a duty. I hope that the Minister can assist with these points.