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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for giving me the opportunity to reassure him and the Prisoners’ Education Trust on these matters. I will, as he suggests, say a few words about these clauses generally. I appreciate the noble Lord’s thoughts about these clauses being tucked away in the Bill. I have a sense that we have not yet even got to the bits that are tucked away. I feel as though we are still quite near the beginning of the Bill; I am sure other noble Lords in the Committee have a similar sense. We are very much at the beginning of the Committee stage. I will briefly set out the overall effect of the young offender clauses. I believe that there is much to be proud of in the Bill. One of the things that I am particularly proud of is that it ends the disapplication of education law to young people in custody. Currently, as noble Lords are well aware, education law stops at the door of the young offender institution and the Bill will end that. The Bill will join up provision for young offenders with that in the mainstream by giving responsibility for commissioning their education and training to the host local authority in which the custodial establishment is situated. Local authorities are well placed to do this; they already have responsibility for education up to the age of 16 and, as a result of the Bill, they will take on responsibility for education up the age of 19 in England. As young people are often detained in custody outside their home areas, we are also introducing a duty on home local authorities to promote the fulfilment of young people’s learning potential. This will ensure that one authority remains involved in the person’s education regardless of where they are in the system. To ensure that accurate and up-to-date educational information is available to education providers in custody and on the person’s release, the Bill introduces strengthened information-sharing provisions, which are very important here. Finally, the Bill makes substantial improvements to meeting the special educational needs of young people in custody, which we are due to discuss later in debates on further groupings. This is a very important set of clauses. As the Standing Committee for Youth Justice has said, this is an opportunity to level the educational playing field for young people in custody. While it is right that we debate the detail of how we do this, I hope that this will not obscure the significance of these reforms, to which the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, has already pointed. On Amendment 113B, I reassure noble Lords that the Bill already secures level 3 provision. Subsection (1) of new Section 18A, which Clause 47 inserts, makes it clear that the local authority must secure provision so that enough suitable education and training is available to meet the reasonable needs of young people in juvenile custody. Subsection (2) also provides that in deciding whether education or training is suitable to meet a person’s reasonable needs, the authority must have regard to the person’s age, abilities and aptitudes. This means that where young people have a need for level 3 courses, to which the amendment refers, the local authority will take account of this under the duties in new Section 18A. Additionally, local authorities are already required to have regard to the desirability of enabling a person to complete programmes of study which they have begun. This will include level 3 courses. I know from our discussions outside Committee that noble Lords are particularly concerned about this issue. I also emphasise that we will make it clear in guidance issued under new Section 18A that local authorities must secure provision to meet these reasonable needs. That guidance will set out in more detail that this includes the provision of level 3 courses. I hope the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and other noble Lords who are concerned about this matter will feel reassured and that the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, will withdraw his amendment.