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Education and Skills Bill

I am completely at one with my noble friend Lord Rowlands in valuing the importance and potential benefits of introducing compulsory participation in education and training until the age of 18. I am also very grateful to him for his support for our policy. I hope that Members of the Welsh Assembly read his speech and appreciate his cogent arguments. I absolutely agree with him that it should be possible for the Welsh Assembly to decide to raise the participation age in Wales at some point in the future, and that we should ensure that this legislation does nothing to preclude that possibility. The Government of Wales Act 2006 allows the Assembly to acquire enhanced legislative powers through legislative competence orders. If, given the English experience, the Welsh Assembly Government decided to raise the participation age in future, they could propose a legislative competence order to seek powers to enable them to do so. We have been working with the Wales Office and the Welsh Assembly Government to ensure that this legislation does nothing to preclude that possibility and is drafted in a way that enables all aspects of the policy to be applied to Wales should the Welsh Assembly Government decide to pursue such an approach. A future legislative competence order could cover all aspects of Part 1, with the exception of the duties on employers. I moved the government amendments to enable the duties on employers in Chapter 3 of Part 1 to be applied to Wales, should the Assembly Government acquire the legislative competence to raise the participation age there, and to bring forward a measure to do so. As I say, this would need to be a decision that they would take in due course. On Question, amendment agreed to. Clause 54 [Support services: provision by local education authorities]: