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Education and Skills Bill

My Lords, I hope that my noble friend might in due course have an opportunity not to go down this route herself and that she will then take quite seriously what is proposed in the amendment. If we are to give people rights to educate themselves to a decent level, when the time is right for them appears to be the right way to go. To have a pupil who is motivated, who wants to learn and knows what they want to learn is so much better than having someone who is dragging their feet every step of the way. You can achieve so much more for the same amount of money. In a way, some children of 16 and 17 need some life experience; they need to get out there and learn how hard life is in the real world; they need to learn a bit more about themselves and what they want to do, and then come back to education. When that happens, they should be able to do so on the same terms as someone who already knows at 16 that they want to take a couple of A-levels and go on to university. The idea of lifelong learning and the ability to do it should be core to our thinking. Lots of people find at certain periods of their life that they need some additional education. If they have not had a basic education and have not learnt what they should have learnt earlier in life, the easy availability of a retraining course and the money to do that which has not been wasted by keeping them in school between the ages of 16 and 18 but is available for them when they need it, is surely the right way to go. Why should they have to pay for it? To have a quick week of education available for Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross would be a thoroughly good idea.