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Education and Skills Bill

I hope that the noble Baroness can clear up a confusion for me. I understand that one of the qualifying courses is level 1 literacy. However, if someone is not yet at a level where they can take on level 1 literacy, but needs to do an entry level qualification first, will that be free? The noble Baroness nods. That is encouraging. I did not read the Bill that way. Despite the financial qualifications to which the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, referred, which I am sure will weigh heavily on my Front Bench, it seems to me that the age range during which people really need this provision is that of 30 to 45. Below 30 you can be desired for your body alone. You have a decent set of muscles, as yet undamaged, and you can do heavy work such as tree surgery. You can take on danger and situations needing quick reactions and probably do not yet have family responsibilities. There are a lot of jobs for young men—and, doubtless, young women—who are prepared to work hard. However, when you hit 30, your bones start to creak and you may have broken one or two. You can see that you will not be able to do such work for the rest of your life. That is the period when the need to get a qualification comes to the fore. It is also when you are short of money and you cannot just go without beer for a few months to find the funds for an evening course, because you are committed to family and all the expenses that brings with it. After about the age of 45, perhaps, the utility to the nation of your getting a qualification is not there. We ought to be concentrating on that period of 30 to 45. Limiting this provision to 25 really just picks up a few young people who realise quite early on that they need an extra qualification. I do not think that it will pick up the people to whom it should apply.