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Education and Skills Bill

In proposing the amendment, I very much applaud the excellent work of Jane Hutt, the Assembly Minister for Education, Culture and Young People, and her colleagues in innovatively and imaginatively developing the 14-to-19 curriculum in Wales. I fully respect the power and responsibility that the Assembly has with regard to education, but my reason for proposing the amendment is quite simply to ensure that if the Welsh Assembly Government see the need to make the entitlement to education or training up until the age of 18 compulsory in future, they have the facility to do so without the need for primary legislation from the UK Government. Many excellent programmes in Wales to encourage young people to continue their education or training up until the age of 18 are being delivered largely through schools and colleges. The response of the National Training Federation for Wales to ““Skills That Work for Wales”” states that the Welsh Assembly should include 16 to 19-year-olds at work in the learning entitlement measure and should seriously consider taking reserve powers to introduce, if necessary, an obligation to learn along the lines of the English Bill. It says that such a reserve power could be useful in underpinning entitlement by prompting employers and young employees alike to engage voluntarily in and complete an appropriate qualification process. In the view of the NTFW, that would also encourage the completion of apprenticeships because non-completions have long been identified as a problem within the apprenticeship process. We all appreciate that, as far as we possibly can, we need to motivate young people to take up education and training opportunities up to the age of 18 of their own volition, but without repeating the many good reasons why the Bill will make that entitlement compulsory, I should like to highlight a couple of issues. First, one of the reasons for making entitlement up to the age of 18 compulsory is that authorities, particularly in difficult times, have to concentrate their resources on statutory provision. If a service is not statutory, it can be in danger of being starved of funding and under-resourced. Secondly, once the measures in the Bill come into force, making entitlement up to the age of 18 compulsory in England, there may be cross-border issues and unintended consequences that make compulsion desirable in Wales. I propose the amendment in order to ensure that that option will be open to the Welsh Assembly Government.