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Education and Skills Bill

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for making that point. I am sure that he is right about the talents that many of these young people have. Later in my speech, I want to consider some of the categories who currently leave education at 16. They have very different characteristics and disadvantages, and we need to ensure that the systems that we put in place are suited to their needs, not merely to some blueprint passed down from on high by the Government, whether or not the CBI agrees with it. I want to focus on the principal disagreement we have with the Bill, which concerns the issue of compulsion and potential criminalisation. I want to consider whether that is the right way to deliver the Government's appropriate aspirations. There are many measures in the Bill with which we agree strongly, and to which we shall return in Committee, but today we are discussing the overall principles of the Bill, which is why I want to focus on those particular points. My view is that the compulsion and criminalisation in the Bill are not the right means to deliver the Government's objectives. Because we believe in the Bill's aspirations, and in many of its components, we are not going to divide the House on the issue of criminalisation and compulsion today. I hope, however, that we can persuade the Government over the weeks and months ahead, not only in this place but in Committee and in the other place, that they have got some key decisions wrong, and I also hope that we can secure amendments to the Bill that will make it more acceptable. At the moment, the Bill infringes liberty, fails to address many of the real causes of educational disadvantage, and could disadvantage some young people with regard to their employment prospects. I fear that when politics students in years to come look back at the Labour Government of 1997 to 2010, they will find that this Bill—