To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families if he will make an assessment of the likely costs to the Newcastle local education authority of raising the school leaving age to 18. (174133)

The estimated costs of raising the participation age were set out in the regulatory impact assessment (RIA) published alongside the Education and Skills Bill on 29 November 2007. Costs were projected to be around £800 million per cohort of young people but the economic benefits were estimated to be around £2,400 million on the same basis.

The RIA can be accessed at:

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/publications/educationandskills/

and I have placed a copy in the Library of the House.

The Department has not made detailed economic projections at a local level. Demographic changes will vary between local areas, of course, as will the nature of demand from young people, and local authorities will need to use their own projections to plan accordingly.

The proposed legislation is for the education and training leaving age, not the school leaving age, to be raised to 18 years. This will be done in two stages, with the participation age not being raised to 18 until 2015.