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Education and Skills Bill

I could not agree more. Numeracy is a basic life skill and we need an education system that, at the very least, delivers the ability to read, write and add up. I believe that we are failing. When considering compulsion, we should ask whether our education system has a sufficiently strong basic foundation to justify telling somebody who has already spent 10 years with his head down, unable to answer questions in the classroom, or possibly so ashamed of that that he is truanting—let us not beat about the bush, truanting is increasing—that they have another two years of it. That is a dangerous suggestion and I note that the Professional Association of Teachers said in its response that two extra years is a worrying way in which to confront young people who have had such an experience. We must be cautious about taking that route. Getting to grips with the basic problem of teaching reading, writing and mathematics at an early age should be at least our starting point. Special schools, which deal with learning disability, have specialist courses to teach children to read and write. They are based on synthetic phonics, with course books such as ““Annie Apple”” and ““Bouncy Ben””, through which children learn ““Ah, Buh, Cuh”” and so on and to put it together. It is basic stuff, but if one can teach someone with a learning disability to read and write, surely those bright people whom the right hon. Member for Birkenhead mentioned can be taught to pick it up. If they cannot, we are in trouble. If synthetic phonics can do it for a child with learning disability, we should use the system for children who do not have those barriers. Are we to criminalise our young people and set a period of two years, when they live in fear, dreading the teacher turning to them? That is not the way forward. It is odd to read in the Bill an offence of effectively doing oneself harm. Clause 46 provides that, if young people do not follow the attendance orders, they commit an offence of not improving their education. It is an odd idea in a country with liberal values. The Secretary of State says that one would not necessarily go to prison if one did not pay the fine, but the sort of people whom we are discussing have gone year after year without attending school. It is possible that they would get an attendance order, not follow it, commit the offence, be fined and not pay the fine. One of the penalties is going to a young offender institution. The Secretary of State says that the Government are trying to change that so that the young person would go only to an attendance centre. It is still odd to provide such a criminal penalty for an offence that has a civil feel to it. I notice that a lot of the bodies that responded to the consultation said that they were worried about criminalisation. I am too.