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Education and Skills Bill

My Lords, it follows from our view about the argument on compulsion versus entitlement that we would enthusiastically support the noble Baronesses on the Conservative Benches as the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, was kind enough to support me in that earlier discussion. It is quite clear from the meeting we had yesterday afternoon with Jim Knight MP, the Minister in another place, that the Government accept that there will be a criminal offence in some cases. He told us that he thinks this is right if young people decide that, despite all the help they are given and despite all the barriers being taken away, they will not comply with the law the Government wish to introduce. We do not agree with that. We think it is wrong to criminalise young people. There is no doubt that this offence will be revealed in CRB checks—soon to be ISA checks—and that young people will be obliged to disclose it under certain circumstances when making job applications. It is quite wrong: a criminal offence should be something that is anti-social and that hurts other people. The Government would say that this hurts only the young people themselves. In a free country, people should be free to hurt themselves if they really must. We would rather they did not, but in a liberal democracy they should be free to do that, as long as it does not hurt anybody else. If young people conscientiously believe that now is the wrong moment for them to pursue their education, they should have the freedom to do that as long as they have an entitlement to go back to education later on. The Minister, Jim Knight, told us yesterday that, at the end of all these procedures, young people could be accused of contempt of court if all attempts to persuade them to comply and to pay the fine have failed. That is a criminal offence. It is clear, therefore, that the Government are proposing to criminalise young people on a matter about which they are not hurting anybody but themselves. We think that is wrong. We would support the Conservatives if they wanted to bring this back at Third Reading.