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Education and Skills Bill

We are pleased to return to our measured consideration of these important matters, which absorbed a good deal of the debate in Committee and the House of Lords. We are grateful to the other House for its close consideration, which gives us a chance to debate these matters again. Without at all wishing to crow, I should say that the Government have had a chance to think again about some of the arguments advanced in Committee regarding the issue of criminalising young people, which so concerned Opposition Members. Amendments Nos. 27 to 31, 173, 178, 179 and 211 ensure that ordinary adult fine enforcement procedures do not apply in the case of persons not complying with an attendance notice. Amendment No. 28 ensures that even pre-18-year-old offenders are dealt with in magistrates courts and that those over 18 are dealt with in county courts. Neither court has the capacity to impose custody, as the notes on the amendments make clear. Amendment No. 29 ensures that if the offender fined is over 18, they are dealt with in the county court. Amendments Nos. 28, 30 and 31 allow the Lord Chancellor to make further detailed provisions. Amendments Nos. 173, 178 and 179 are consequential amendments, inserting the words ““or Lord Chancellor”” after ““State””. Amendment No. 211 invokes the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 to allow magistrates courts to revoke youth default orders when the individuals concerned reach 18 and apply new fines, depending on how the young person has complied with the order. Again, the county court will deal with that. As an Opposition, we fully support the move to civil law, preventing custodial sentences and the utilisation of learner support agreements that delay the use of fines. The Minister has said a word about that issue today, and we debated it at length in Committee. We made the case consistently during the passage of the Bill and are pleased that the Government have finally agreed the position that we adopted at the outset. Time and again in the evidence sittings in Committee we heard that young people might be criminalised. That was of concern not only to the young people themselves, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) has mentioned, to many of the organisations that work most closely with the disadvantaged. As compassionate Conservatives, we make no apology for allocating a disproportionate concern, energy and intellectual capital to the defence of the most vulnerable in our country, particularly young people. The experience of those who deal with young people—particularly disengaged and troubled young people—was made clear by their evidence. Those with such experience believe that if such young people were stigmatised or criminalised they could become entirely disengaged and impossible to re-engage in the education process. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton mentioned, the Prince's Trust waxed eloquent on that subject. I take this opportunity to wish His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales a happy 60th birthday; without him, there would not have been a trust to give the evidence that so informed our consideration and in the end persuaded the Government to change their mind. He is surely the greatest living Englishman. A representative of the Prince's Trust told us that"““the bulk of the 40,000 people who we worked with last year had issues with drugs and alcohol. What do you do with a young person who is already going down the path of taking too many drugs and drinking too much...The question is how you deal with that. Do you increasingly criminalise young people and just say, 'Right, we're going to lock you all up,' or do you find some way of trying to reach them and sort out some of their issues?””—[Official Report, Education and Skills Public Bill Committee, 22 January 2008; c. 16, Q36.]" The evidence graphically illustrates that young people in the greatest need are least likely to benefit from a Bill that coerces them and ultimately—if they do not abide by their duties—criminalises them. We heard similar evidence from the Association of School and College Leaders, which said in its briefing on the Bill that its preferred approach to achieving full participation was persuasion rather than coercion. There is no lack of commitment among those on the Conservative Benches to the principle of increasing the participation of post-16-year-olds in education. Indeed, we regard ourselves as at the forefront of that campaign. However, we believe that we are most likely to achieve such participation by inspiring, encouraging and moving the hearts and minds of young people, rather than by coercion. In Committee, the Minister made it clear that he believes that the vast majority of young people, including many who are disengaged, can be re-engaged—not by compulsion, but by the quality of the offer that the Government would seductively place before them. Furthermore, when I pressed him closely on that, he acknowledged that there would always, notwithstanding that seductive offer, be a certain number who played truant. Truancy is at its highest level for 10 years, as the Minister must know. The percentage of half-days lost to truancy across all schools last year rose, and was higher than at any time since the Government came to office. Recently, they dropped their target to cut truancy, as he will know. We are therefore still concerned about the recourse to fines and youth courts, which should be a last resort. On Report in the other place, Baroness Morris of Bolton said that"““while we share the Government's ambition to see each and every 17 and 18-year-old receive the best education or training to help them realise their full potential, our main concern throughout the Bill has been the issue of compulsion and the attendant sanctions this brings….The Government constantly reassure us that the checks and balances put in place by the Bill will make criminalisation extremely rare. We hope that it will not happen at all. However, we welcome the independent review offered by the Government.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 November 2008; Vol. 705, c. 556.]" Now we have the Government acknowledging the strength of the argument that we advanced in the Commons, but one or two questions remain. The Minister will want to make these matters perfectly clear, and we want his concession to be laid before us in the fullest detail. The first point concerns the scale of fines. The Minister has been helpful today, and the explanatory notes state in this respect that fines will be defined around the standard scale for summary offences at level 1. It would be helpful to have some feel for what that is. For the record, it would be useful to take this opportunity, in the House, to put some numbers to it. Secondly, the Minister will know that in Lords amendments Nos. 27 to 31, 173, 178 to 180, and 211, we deal with fine enforcement. It is clear that"““failure to comply with an attendance notice without reasonable excuse””" will lead to further action. Again, it would be helpful if he defined ““reasonable excuse””. It may be a standard legal definition or particular to this area of law, but it would be helpful to put the matter on the record. On the agreements that are to form part of the relationship between Connexions and young people dealt with in amendment No. 40, it would be helpful if we knew more in relation to young people with particular needs. I have in mind young people with special educational needs who may have a statement. Needs are defined in the Bill, as I understand it, but what about SEN and what about young people who may be particularly disadvantaged in making such agreements, and in so doing enabling themselves to comply with the law? Will the Minister say a word about that? I leave the Minister with those few words and questions. It is good news that the Government are gradually coming around—they certainly are not kicking and screaming; as we saw today, there was far more elegance in the Minister's performance than that—to our point of view.