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Education and Skills Bill

This is indeed a controversial set of amendments. Of course we all want to improve the life chances of 16 and 17-year-olds, but it is best to do that by means of inspiration and the creation of opportunities for them, rather than by means of compulsion. There are enough ways in which youngsters in that age group can get into trouble without our creating yet another. That smacks of unnecessary interference in people's lives, bigger government and the nanny state. I am surprised at the attitude of Opposition Front Benchers to the amendments, and also at the lack of interest in them; very few Members are present to debate them. I have not yet heard how many administrators and other additional staff will be needed to police the new system, what the cost will be, and how we will stop local authorities and others from doing what they do in this country—gold-plating the regulations, and taking them rather further than the House expects them to be taken. We have heard little about how we will prevent the youth courts from becoming bottled up if that happens. The Minister said that very few cases would end up in the youth courts, but we have heard such undertakings in this place before, and quite the contrary turns out to be the case when the laws are rolled out. We have not been told how, in the last resort, the payment of fines will be enforced. Unless a sanction is enforceable, it will be meaningless. As was stated by both Front-Bench spokesmen, there will be micky-takers in the system. We do not need this nanny-state measure. What we do need is the provision of real opportunity and inspiration for young people. We must provide ladders so that when they reach an age at which they decide that they want to acquire skills and education they are able to do so, rather than enacting measures to criminalise them. My constituency contains six secondary schools that will need to increase their capacity considerably because of the additional participation of people aged between 16 and 18. Four of them are oversubscribed. There are waiting lists, and people are turned away. People write to me every week asking how they can get their kids into those four schools. However, Essex county council is closing one of them, and is allowing the borough council to sell the school playing field so that hundreds more houses can be built. What will the Minister do to ensure that resources are available to enable children in that age group to take advantage of further education? Some of those questions really do need to be addressed. I strongly believe that the Minister should think again before criminalising young people.