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Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 4: 4: Clause 2, page 2, line 3, at end insert ““, or (d) have signed, and be participating in, a learning and support contract entered into with a local education authority to provide personalised support leading to future participation in accredited education or training.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 4, I shall also speak to Amendment No. 10 and government Amendment No. 65, which are grouped with it. We very much welcome government Amendment No. 65. The Government have taken up the idea of learning and support contracts and called them learning and support agreements. I welcome the briefing that we have received from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which strongly supports the learning and support agreement approach. We have retabled our amendment—formerly Amendment No. 15 in Committee—to ask some questions about what the Government propose and perhaps to persuade them to go just a little further. We seek to find a genuinely personalised approach for these young people who do not fit into the normal categories of those who might go on to take the usual qualifications without too much difficulty. Young people are as variable as the leaves on the trees; they grow up at different rates and they have different problems. We are delighted that the Government have accepted the learning and support contract approach—even though they are calling it an agreement—including social and health support, which I assume includes mental health. The only unfortunate thing about it is that this help is available only if the young person continues in the type of study prescribed by the Government. However, I very much took on board the reassurances that the Minister gave my noble friend Lady Sharp about the breadth of non-formal provision being acceptable. It is important that local authorities should be expected to go down the learning and support agreement route before embarking on any enforcement procedures. I should like the Minister to assure me that that must be done before they even apply for attendance notices. How will the Government ensure that they do that? Enforcement procedures should never commence if a young person has unmet needs. Will the Government issue guidance to ensure that local authorities do this? Will the Minister also assure the House that the duty to participate in Clause 2 will be fulfilled by a young person actively taking part in one of these agreements? How will local authorities be resourced to provide the necessary support within these agreements? How will current best practice be disseminated? I believe that there is some good practice out there. Can the Minister also confirm that the sort of support envisaged can also be given to young people to help them to participate outwith one of these formal learning and support agreements, and can she say more about any guidance that she will send to local authorities about how they will tailor the package of support to each young person’s needs and how their parents or guardians will be involved in developing the content of the agreement? When the local authority is the corporate parent, how will it negotiate with itself in relation to looked-after children? The Equality and Human Rights Commission expressed concern that the concept of reasonable excuse could be used as an excuse by government and local authorities and that this would mean that the most vulnerable and those most in need of support will continue to be ignored. It welcomes learning and support contracts because it thinks that that will help to ensure that that does not happen and will redress the balance in the Bill towards help and support and against some of the compulsion and penalty elements that we spent so much time debating and will do so again today. It is not going to be possible for all young people to participate without a good deal of help and support and taking away the barriers that they have had up to now to progressing in education beyond 16. That is what we all want to see. We very much welcome what the Government have done. I should be most grateful if the Minister could answer my questions and give us some of the reassurances for which I have asked. I beg to move.