My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Haskel) in the Chair.]

Clause 1 [Persons to whom Part 1 applies]:

moved Amendment No. 1:

I support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 3, 5 and 6, which are in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Walmsley.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, mentioned, these amendments take us straight to the issue of compulsion, which is the central feature of the Bill. The preference on these Benches is that, rather than compulsion, there should be an entitlement to two years’ further education and training. This will be spelt out at some length when my noble friend Lady Walmsley addresses the next group of amendments.

Nevertheless, at this point we should reflect on the extensive debate in the Commons on these issues. It is clear that, although we differ as to how this should be delivered, all parties agree, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, that it is in the country’s interests that young people aged 17 and 18 should participate in education and training. The question is: what is the best way of securing this? The lengthy debates in the Commons clearly indicated that the Government believe that by 2013—which is the year in which the first element of compulsion comes into force and young people will have to stay in education and training until they are 17—90 per cent of young people will be staying voluntarily in school or working in a job that provides them with the requisite training as a result of the reforms that are currently going through in the 14 to 19 curriculum and through the new initiatives on apprenticeships.

The key element to which this Bill is addressed is the 10 per cent, the NEET group who are not currently in education, employment or training. They are the hard core; many of these young people have dropped out of school long before the age of 16 and live in a shadow-world of odd jobs, drugs and petty crime. Many of them are illiterate or barely literate. They dropped out because they have not been able to keep up. Very frequently this is because they cannot read and write. Because they cannot read they do not understand properly and they find, particularly when they go into secondary school at the age of 11, that it is extremely difficult to cope with the curriculum.

It is generally agreed that one of the reasons why we have such a low participation rate in this country as compared to all other advanced, industrialised countries, is that our secondary school curriculum does not motivate 50 per cent of the pupils. We are well aware of the reforms that the Government are making to that curriculum. We hope that they will be successful and that we shall see this natural increase in participation. But it is questionable whether compulsion is the right way to encourage this hard core of young people, who very frequently have dropped out of school at the age of 14 or 15.

I turn to the group of amendments before us. There is an anomaly. Young people at 16 are now regarded as being old enough to go into the Army, pay taxes, get married, have sex and be parents. They are no longer tied to their parents’ apron strings. My party and, indeed, the Government are very keen that we should give these young people a chance to practise the citizenship lessons that they have been receiving at school and give them the right to vote. Is it right, therefore, that we do not give them a choice over what sort of education they have and when they take that education? Is the sledgehammer approach, as David Laws, our education spokesman in the other place, called it in his deliberations on the Bill, the correct one?

This set of amendments is exploring two things: first, the anomalies that arise and, secondly, the fourth option. The amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, picks up on some of these anomalies. It addresses those with full-time caring responsibilities, those who are parents of children under five, those who are engaged in full-time voluntary work—I will come back to that in a moment—and those with an illness requiring significant medical attention or a terminal illness, and so forth.

Amendment No. 3 concerns the issue of sport. Those who take their sport seriously are, by the age of 16, frequently spending more or less all their time in what might be called a sporting apprenticeship. If we are trying to train new champions for Wimbledon or to coach a generation who will bring us some gold medals in the Olympics, these super-athletes are going to have to spend a lot of time in sporting activities. Will they be excluded from the requirements of the Bill?

In Amendment No. 6, we have gone for a parent of a child under the age of one, rather than under the age of five, as the Conservatives have. We endorse the amendments tabled by the Conservatives in relation to both terminal illness and full-time caring arrangements.

Amendment No. 5 is concerned with what might be called the fourth option—voluntary activities. Some extremely interesting sessions were held at the beginning of the Committee stage in the other place when a large number of organisations presented evidence to the Members. Among those organisations were Barnardo’s, the Prince’s Trust and Fairbridge, which deals particularly with the 10 per cent of young people in the NEET group. At Second Reading I quoted some of the recommendations made by these bodies in those Committee sessions.

We have to accept that these voluntary bodies are much more successful than schools or colleges at helping young people get back into employment and education. They stressed what a long-term exercise it is. This is where Amendment No. 5 comes in. It provides that if young people are engaged in voluntary work for more than 20 hours a week, which might well be under the auspices of one of these organisations, they should not be involved in the compulsory element. Amendment No. 5 puts forward a fourth option: there is a way forward that does not have to be within the education sector or training for accredited qualifications, an issue we shall pick up later. These are important issues and broadly speaking we support the amendment introduced by the Opposition.

My name is attached to some of the amendments in this group. I wish to relate some personal experiences that underline the reasons for my support. Some years ago I was asked by a local education authority to run a course for young teenage mothers. In its wisdom, the authority provided a crèche for the children while the mothers attended the course. It did not lead to accredited qualifications of any kind, but I hope that it was helpful to them. Indeed, I have kept in touch with some of those delightful young women and they still say after so many years that they found coming together and talking through aspects of their situation enormously helpful.

I recall most vividly one young woman of only 17 who already had two children by different fathers. She lived in very unsatisfactory circumstances. Her mother had thrown her out and would have nothing more to do with her. She was grey-faced and looked about 90 rather than 17 when she said to me, “I’m not getting any sleep and I simply have no time to think. All I want is to look after my babies properly”. She was very tearful as she said that. To tell that young woman that she had to sign up for some form of accredited qualification because she would be criminalised if she did not would go way beyond any kind of sensible thought or reason. Young people who are already caring for small children need help and guidance. If they are lucky enough to have access to something like the provision made by the local education authority I mentioned a moment ago, then of course they should take up some form of supported educational help—but not, for goodness’ sake, studying for qualifications, writing examinations and taking practical tests. Those young women are vividly in my mind when I support strongly the concept that women with small children should not be forced into education leading to qualifications.

My second thought, when looking at the many good things here, concerns voluntary work. Last week a young man, now in his 20s, told me that at his parents’ insistence he stayed on at school for a term after he had finished his very mediocre GCSEs. He said to me, “I was in deep depression. I hated education, my school and my teachers. I knew that I was not academic and I did not want anything to do with it. So I begged my parents to let me drop out”. He did drop out of school. His parents had the good sense to send him along to the Community Service Volunteers. He signed up with them and worked for, I think, six months in a school for young deaf children. He was transformed. He loved the work and being with the young children. He showed me a collection of the cards they sent him when he was leaving, which said “We love you”, “Please come back” and so on. They are a treasured possession.

The point of the story is that voluntary work turned the young man around. If you had asked him to go back into formal education, he would have found it impossible and would have run away. The good end to the story is that, at the age of 24, having been very much helped and turned around by two long periods of voluntary work, one of them overseas, he decided to study for a degree.

A few categories of people should be allowed to leave education. They grow up at different rates and feel differently at different ages. Some 16 and 17 year-olds are simply not ready for formal education. They have other interests and concerns in life. If they can be helped through this period in ways not strictly leading to formal qualifications, it is my firm belief that the majority will come back later. I do not think we should be forcing such young people into an educational experience that to them is anathema.

I entirely support what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, has just said. A number of these young people just need space. They have been in education from age five to 16. For one reason or another, they have had a hard time of it or it just has not suited them. They just need some room in their lives; they do not need to be beaten over the head for the next two years.

Instead of rigidity, we need flexibility. Later in the amendments, we will come to some ideas on how that might be achieved through local authorities. Personalised learning should be offered, suited to the needs of each young person. That may mean postponing things for a while or going out in the world to get some experience and coming back later. It is not about shrugging off the obligation but perhaps postponing it. That is proposed in one of the amendments in this group and seems a good idea. Above all, there must be something directed at the needs of the person.

To quote a fairly obvious example, the BBC website says that Sir Alan Sugar left school at 16 and started selling aerials from the back of a van. That would see him in jug if he tried that under this Bill, but it is what many people who are destined to be entrepreneurs need to do at that age. They need to get out. They have had enough; they need to use the talent that has been burning inside them, get out there and make something of themselves and of the world.

The situation is common all over the world. I remember talking to the Minister of Education in Singapore, who said that their schools focused on the bottom 20 per cent because it included half of the entrepreneurs who would really make it and who would make great businesses. We have to make sure that those people are looked after. To keep these people in school for another two years doing something that they find pointless will not give them a constructive future. The same applies to all sorts of young people who are just not right for education at a particular moment, as my noble friend Lady Perry said, and who need to do something else constructive.

I hope that when we come to the amendments about what responsibilities local authorities can have, the Government will become more flexible in their approach. I hope that they are prepared to trust local authorities to take decisions, particularly about young people, that can never be taken through a centralised, rigid system as set out in the Bill. I hope that we will be allowed to make that improvement to this Bill.

I support the intentions behind these amendments. It is quite clear that all of us have grave concern about what appears to be a compulsory system, possibly resulting in a criminal offence if there is failure to comply. Everything that noble Lords have said about the different stages, not ages, of development, including the very moving story of the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, is extremely relevant, as is the full horror and dislike of formal education felt by some students who have been failed. No doubt, to some extent they contributed to their failure, but with the handicap of having left primary school unable to read and then having failed for however long they stayed in secondary school, it is not surprising that they have no empathy with what was going on.

I very much look forward to the Minister’s reply and hope that he has recognised the concern apparent in the stories we have been told.

The intention of the Bill is absolutely right. However, Members of the Committee are equally right in arguing that it must not be a case of “one menu suits all” and people will obey.

The one thing I know about education is that one menu does not suit all, and we must have room for flexibility. I could tell the story of a young man of 16 who, on work experience, was the best the company had ever had. It wanted him to take an apprenticeship but, although he was absolutely fitted for it and would enjoy it, he would not take it because it meant compulsory attendance for half the time at an FE college, which he hated. We are therefore destroying an excellent opportunity.

Therefore, while I warmly support what is intended for the vast majority, I think that there must be room for flexibility in the treatment of people for whom it is not at all right.

I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, for being absent from the Chamber when she introduced this important group of amendments. I heard only the last part of her introduction and I look forward to reading the rest tomorrow.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Dearing that the principle of a firm approach to ensure that young people are in constructive activity as far as possible, to keep them out of trouble and to enable them to achieve their potential, is right; but there must be the flexibility that we are discussing.

The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, and others spoke on the amendment concerned with teenage mothers having access to parenting programmes. It is so important not to inhibit these young women in their mothering. They may lack confidence when someone says, “We know what’s best for you. We’ll look after your children through one means or another, perhaps through childcare, while you go and study”. As far as possible, we should be encouraging them to engage with their children and to enjoy them. The child will then thrive and both mother and child will benefit from the positive relationship that they have with each other. That was a particularly important amendment to bring forward.

Perhaps I am jumping the gun a little, but can the Minister comment on one scenario I can envisage in, for instance, a children’s home? If a 16 or 17 year-old is saying, “I don’t want to do a course. I don’t want to spend two days a week in training”, it might strengthen the hand of residential childcare workers if they can say, “You’ll be acting against the law if you don’t go to college just for two days a week”. On the other hand, it may be that in the judgment of the residential childcare worker that young person is too depressed to benefit from such training, that they will seek to evade it in any way, or just simply that it is not right for them. Therefore, how much discretion will people such as residential childcare workers, social workers and perhaps foster carers be given? How much input will they have in the process of deciding whether a child is criminalised? I can see some benefit in strengthening a concerned carer’s hand in encouraging a young person to do what is good for them. On the other hand, carers also need to be able to decide whether the provisions should not apply to a particular child. I hope that that is clear, and look forward to the reply.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has raised the important question of discretion without addressing who should have it. He cited a case where there was an obvious person to have that discretion, but in the Bill we are dealing with the whole 10 per cent of the relevant group of society, and there will be many different cases. We had the grey-faced teenage mother from my noble friend Lady Perry; we had the volcanic Sir Alan Sugar from my noble friend Lord Lucas; now we have the young person whom the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, described.

It seems to me that there is no discretion in the Bill except to allow people to break the law—I am very, very glad to see the Minister shaking his head. I shall immediately sit down in anticipation of discovering where I am wrong.

I had not meant to bring the noble Lord’s remarks to such an abrupt close. It is kind of him to greet my remarks with such eager anticipation; they are not always so regarded.

I welcome the fact that, in all parts of the Committee, there has been general support for the measures in the Bill to promote higher participation among 16 to 18 year-olds. The issue before us now is whether whole groups should be exempted from a requirement to participate. Our argument here is simple. While we believe that there should be elements of flexibility—I will say more about those in a moment—we also believe that the expectation and opportunity to participate in education and training should, in principle, apply to all young people and that, far from being kind and considerate to whole groups of young people by seeking to exclude them, the amendments would be the opposite. They would deny opportunity and expectation to some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable young people. In fact, irreparable harm would be done to those young people’s life skills and future social and economic success if we were to exclude them in the way proposed.

That is not simply the view of the Government; it is the view of many reputable organisations that have made representations. In its representations on the Bill, Barnardo’s says that it welcomes,

“the proposal to raise the age of participation in education or training to 18, which represents an important opportunity to improve provision for the many young people who leave school at 16 with few skills and poor long-term prospects. Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are among the least likely to stay on, perpetuating the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next”.

On compulsion, Barnardo’s says that,

“if steps are taken to find the right course for a young person and to put in place the necessary support”—

the flexibility of provision to meet their needs is a vital requirement—

“then it is fair to expect them to participate—if necessary, through some system of enforcement, including powers for local authorities to prosecute as a last resort”.

The Special Education Consortium takes the same view, saying that it,

“welcomes the proposal to extend to the age of eighteen the requirement to stay in education or training. … The Consortium recognises that in order to draw disabled young people and young people with SEN into continuing education and training, compulsion may be needed”.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission says the same. It says that,

“the main focus and priority must be to ensure that there is flexible, varied and quality provision of education and training available and that young people, whatever their circumstances or situation, will receive the necessary support to enable them to participate”.

We, of course, endorse all that. However, it also states:

“The Commission recognises that a requirement to engage with additional education and training can only unlock potential if it adequately identifies and addresses the reasons for disengagement and underachievement. But we remain concerned that, without the principle of compulsion, the most disaffected young people will not engage and the success of the Bill will be limited”.

Yes, please.

The amendment seeks to probe what we mean by residence for the purposes of obligation under the Bill. We will make regulations under Clause 53(2) to clarify this further. For the purposes of this debate, our intention is that the duty to participate will apply to all young people resident in England. This does not include people who are here for a day or on holiday or, for example, people who live in Scotland but work in England, but it does include people who have moved here indefinitely from another country. So, it is a reasonable interpretation of the word “residence”.

Amendment No. 3, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, would exempt individuals in full-time sports. We recognise the need for young athletes and sportspeople to be able to dedicate their time to their training. Therefore, where a young athlete or young sports man or woman is training full-time for a career in their sport, they will be treated like those who are employed full-time and they will have to participate only in part-time, not full-time, accredited education or training. However, we believe that they should be required to participate in this part-time education and training not least because for most young people engaged in sports training, including those aspiring to the highest levels of success, as the noble Baroness mentioned, sport alone is unlikely to give them the skills that they need for future employment—certainly, alas, not in the long term. We would like it to be the case that more are able to make a career out of it, but the number able to do so is very small.

However, the requirement has purposely been framed flexibly so that part-time education or training could easily be arranged around an athlete’s training programme and commitments. For example, it could be organised in blocks throughout the year to meet the hours requirement without it necessarily having to take the form of one precise day per week. In some cases, it may also be possible to accredit some elements of the training that a young person is undertaking towards a sports-related qualification. In the academic year 2006-07, 629 new students started on an advanced apprenticeship in sporting excellence. These advanced apprenticeships included places in athletics, cricket, golf, football, rugby, swimming and tennis. They are designed to enable young people to succeed both during and after their sporting careers.

I have two further questions about Clause 39. The noble Lord will know that my constant concern is about implementation rather than aspiration. Like the Government, I believe that children in the most difficult circumstances should have the best opportunities for education. In many cases, the provision that should be there now to give these young people support is simply not available. I hear the figures that the Minister gives in relation to funding. I have heard funding figures before, but on the ground local authorities are not always able to provide the services.

Therefore, I ask two questions. First, in order to ensure that the local authority takes reasonable steps to make the supportive provision outlined in the Bill, what kind of inspection and follow-up will there be? Secondly, how will that information be monitored at a central level and how will comparisons be made so that young people can see what they should be getting? Will there be any way in which they can appeal if they feel that they are being forced into compulsory education in difficult circumstances where the support services do not appear to be provided? I apologise for waiting until the end. I was not supporting the amendments but I am keen to see how this will be implemented.

I will take the points made by the noble Baroness in turn. There is an elaborate appeal process set out in the Bill, which we will discuss later. All children’s services departments are inspected by Ofsted and its reports are published. They will be inspected against their duties once the Bill is enacted. They are monitored centrally by my department. An aspect that we shall monitor particularly closely is their preparedness for making provision in a whole range of areas, not just direct provision in the commissioning of courses but the provision of information, advice and guidance, which is a crucial area for which they will take responsibility under the Bill once it is enacted.

Clause 39 requires that enforcement action is taken against young people only if they are failing without reasonable excuse to fulfil their duty to participate. Jim Knight’s letter to David Laws highlights a particular instance that he believes constitutes a reasonable excuse. The letter states:

“If a particular learning difficulty has been identified and the right support to address it not yet secured or in place, it would be reasonable to expect that the young person could not begin their learning programme until that support was in place”.

I hope that that reinforces the point that I have sought to make throughout this debate, which is that, in extremis or where the local authority is itself negligent in its duties and is not making the necessary provision to ensure that a young person’s needs can be met, that would constitute a reasonable excuse not to participate under Clause 39.

I wish to put two further questions to the Minister. I regret that we on these Benches have not had the benefit of seeing the letter to Mr David Laws. Clearly, communication between one end of Parliament and the other is not what it should be. The question of what constitutes a reasonable excuse is very important. First, will the Government issue guidance to local authorities, which will not have had the benefit of seeing Jim Knight’s letter to Mr Laws? Given the discretion that will be put into the hands of officials, it would be helpful if guidance were issued.

Secondly, on a number of occasions, the noble Lord has been asked whether such activities as volunteering or parenting courses would fulfil the requirement. He has said that those activities could be counted as part of the education element of the requirement as long as the young people involved participated in some form of education within them, but that the courses would need to be accredited. In the case of these somewhat out-of-the-ordinary courses which are not part of the accredited education system—for example, parenting classes—who will carry out the accreditation?

The letter, which the noble Baroness has not yet had the opportunity to read, deals with the first issue. I shall quote its comments on guidance. There is almost nothing which my department expects local authorities to do on which it does not issue elaborate guidance, and we do not intend this matter to be an exception. The letter states:

“We will issue detailed guidance to local authorities on how to interpret the concept, and on how to exercise appropriately their duties in relation to appropriate support and powers in relation to enforcement action. The guidance will reflect the interpretation of reasonable excuse set out in this letter. We are keen to work with local authorities, voluntary sector organisations, Targeted Support services and other interested parties in developing that guidance. An element of local discretion will remain extremely important however, since ultimately the interpretation of what a reasonable excuse is depends on what would be reasonable in the circumstances”.

I hope that that deals with the noble Baroness’s first question.

The issue of accreditation and what constitutes appropriate courses will be subject to the normal accreditation procedures. Rather than seek to set those out exhaustively now, I shall write to the noble Baroness because the same process does not apply in each area. For example, I have no doubt that somewhat different arrangements may apply to sport from those in other areas. However, there is great flexibility here. Just in this debate we have referred to courses with a sporting content which could count and to family learning and parenting courses. There is a great desire to ensure that appropriate learning relevant to the individual in question is encompassed within the duty under the Bill. However, there needs to be a minimum time and a minimum accreditation requirement; otherwise, anything could count and, in many cases, nothing will happen.

I hope that the Minister will copy me in on that letter. Accreditation is not a simple affair, as I am sure he knows, and is further complicated because whereas the Open College Network may accredit particular programmes, the Learning and Skills Council will then refuse to recognise that accreditation. It is key, particularly when one is looking at the funding streams that will be available to institutions offering that education, to know what accredited means and that it also carries the implied promise that such courses will be funded.

Perhaps the Minister can indicate how many parenting courses are currently accredited in the way that is necessary and give some indication of who in the local authority will make that decision. Is it expected to be a teacher or a social worker and what sort of response time will there be? Will it be a bureaucratic procedure involving having to go to the top of the local authority before being able to make a decision?

I am most grateful as always to the Minister for answering our concerns with his customary care and great detail. I apologise for not speaking to Amendment No. 2 or on gap years. As the Minister rightly said, they were probing amendments. Something is always missed out when we are juggling with groupings in Bills in Committee. This has been a good debate. I am sorry that I omitted to support the Liberal Democrats’ amendment on sport. As a sporting fanatic who believes passionately in the importance of sport in the acquisition of lifelong skills, I wholeheartedly support their amendment and I look forward to receiving the letter from the Minister.

It goes to the heart of volunteering as well. It is not enough to say, “We value this, but it is not enough”. I look forward to receiving that letter. My noble friend Lady Perry’s moving account of a young mother of 17 with two children having to comply with the duty in the Bill is, as she says, beyond any kind of reason or sense. The NEET category is not a static one: young people move in and out of it. As my noble friends Lady Perry, Lord Lucas and the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, said, many of those people need a space: they need to get away from something that has formality and often they will return to it, sometimes within a few months; sometimes within a few years.

My noble friend Lord Lucas’s story of Singapore reminds me of a question that was once asked of a former abbot of Ampleforth. He was asked what happened to his boys who failed. He answered, “They employ my scholars”. There is a great deal for people who eventually find their niche in life, but sometimes it takes them some time. I assure the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that I was so engrossed in my notes that I had not noticed that he was not in his place at the beginning. When I looked up for reassurance on secure attachment, he was there as he always is. I was very interested in what he had to say and look forward to the Minister’s response on those areas of concern.

If this element of the Bill has to stay, I can draw some comfort from the Minister’s response on the flexibility of needs and his explanation of Clause 39. Given that the Government have chosen to go down the path of compulsion, it is not surprising that they say that that should in principle apply to all young people and there will not be opt-outs for certain groups of people.

The Minister prays in aid some august bodies. We have spoken to many of them in the past few weeks. The Government are kidding themselves if they believe that those organisations do not have serious concerns. As the Minister himself said, there are some big ifs in what will be there on offer. Given the long list of possible exemptions that was read out, I shall read carefully in Hansard what was said.

However, one question sprang to mind when the Minister talked about young mothers. Why are working mothers given a year off work by statute, while young girls are to be given only 18 weeks? That does not seem right; working mothers are given a year off because it is deemed to be important for them to be with their babies for that first year of life. I seriously hope that the Government will take this away and look at it again. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 not moved.]

moved Amendment No. 4:

Given that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has dealt in these two amendments with the issue of compulsion, it would be discourteous of me to wait for the Minister to reply and go through the same arguments, in order for him to reply again. We thought that compulsion would be dealt with in the next group. With the leave of the Committee, I will speak to my amendments that start with Amendment No. 7. These all deal with the issue of compulsion. Amendment No. 7 would make it a condition that the young person must agree to Part 1 applying before it applies to him. We and the Liberal Democrats have also tabled amendments to remove the duty to participate from the person and, instead, to create an entitlement, which they may choose to take up.

With these amendments, we come to the crux of this Bill. It should come as no surprise that a number of overlapping amendments are tabled to deal with this issue. What they have in common—and what we have in common with the Liberal Democrats and concerned groups outside this House—is the feeling that the Government need to think carefully about the full ramifications of compulsion. It is incumbent on the Government to proceed with caution. We feel strongly that the Government have taken the wrong approach. We should not criminalise those young people who have dropped out of the education system. Instead, we should ask why they have dropped out. It is not simply to spite the authorities, or because there is not yet a law in place which forbids them from leaving. We have to look at young people’s reasons for dropping out of education. It is because they are disaffected with the system and do not see that it has anything further to offer them. It is a sad indictment of those precious years, which should be exciting and fulfilling. Until we can change that, the Bill is simply going to run into trouble.

What is to be gained by forcing teenagers to stay in a system that has already failed them by the time they are 16? In many other respects they are treated as autonomous adults; for example, in the Armed Forces and behind the wheel of a car. Some are married. Unless we sort out the underlying problems, these 16 and 17 year-olds will be sent back into education or training against their will. The Government’s own consultation of young people, Raising Expectations, the DCSF’s 2007 consultation report, says on page 4 that a plurality of young people—47 per cent—were against the duty. Thirty-six per cent were in agreement and 17 per cent were unsure. In many cases, that means that they will ignore the duty that has been imposed. Therefore, they will be liable to sanctions and could end up with a criminal record. Before long, this Bill, which we are responsible for scrutinising and revising, will be regarded less as an education and skills Bill and more as a criminal justice Bill.

The Government have told us that this is the option of last resort and that it will be seldom-used, but we feel that it will be used and will have a devastating effect on those for whom we ought to do most. A criminal record can be a career-wrecking step and that is not where any of us wants to head. We ought not to criminalise those who have been let down by the education system in their early years. Alison Wolf said in a recent paper that one of the best-established findings in educational research is that children who are doing poorly when they leave primary education almost never catch up.

The compulsion element focuses on the wrong place and that is our fundamental problem with it. The Bill, as it stands, would place the onus on the young person to participate. If he or she fails to do so, punishment will follow. The focus of our attention should be what the state and the education system are getting wrong in the years before young people reach the current school-leaving age. If 11 year-olds are leaving primary education with less than basic literacy and numeracy, and if they are failing to catch up by the ages of 14 or 16, why are we surprised that they no longer want to engage in education? Why persist with something they cannot do properly, do not enjoy and does not seem to lead them anywhere? At Second Reading I raised the point that if schools are having trouble keeping under-16s in regular attendance, then what are we to expect the results to be for older teenagers. It is all very well threatening to strong arm young people into participating, but is there really much point if mere participation does not achieve very much?

I support the spirit of the amendments. It is immensely important not to introduce the element of education as something which is almost a punishment; something which you have got to do whether you want to or not. Education for young people, as opposed to children, should be something that they do voluntarily with joy, pride and pleasure.

I have spent a great part of my life working with mature students, people who come into higher education at the age of anything from 23 or 24 to 50 or even more. Almost without exception, these people talk about the reasons why they ceased to engage in education at the end of compulsory schooling. They talk about being slow to grow up; about the allure and excitement of adventure; about wanting to go travelling; about falling in love and deciding that they would rather get married or live together, or whatever they decided to do. They talk about a host of reasons. They talk about wanting to earn some money, being independent and showing that they were grown up.

This underlines the point, which has been made several times already in our discussions on the Bill, that young people grow up at different ages. Some people are ready to go on the tramlines—they stay on in school until the age of 18 or 19, go straight to university and go on to take a PhD—and many thousands successfully do that. But many other thousands do not want to do that and, for them, carrots work better than sticks. I have commended the Government many times on the carrots that they have offered so far. Offering some finance to young people to stay on in education is a brilliant idea which has worked very well. Introducing alternative curricula through the diplomas is also a brilliant idea—I hope that it will work well and keep more young people in. However, I beg the Government to think twice about the element of compulsion when, for so many young people, not just a tiny minority, it is simply the wrong time, the wrong age and the wrong kind of opportunity.

I remind the Minister that we already have compulsion up to the age of 16 and that the Bill moves the compulsion from the parent to the child. Our compulsory system has produced a very large number of truants who have escaped the system. It has not worked—it has resulted in their coming out of education. These young people will compose a large proportion of the group to which this Bill is addressed. I am therefore not encouraged to think that compulsion will have more effect on those in the 16 to 18 age bracket than it has on the five to 16 age bracket.

In my experience of teaching in a variety of secondary schools, I have discovered that the offer of friendship and support works for children much more than the threat of punishment. A Bill that puts the authority delivering education into the position of someone with the power to punish immediately puts that person in the wrong relationship with the pupil. The Bill separates the employer and educator from the local authority, so it may be remediable, but I so sympathise with what my noble friend Lady Perry said about the age at which people mature. We have had examples already quoted of people who flee the system and then come back with enthusiasm when they have matured beyond the age of 18. The Bill does not seem to leave any scope for that rate of maturity. These may be very valuable members of society and great contributors to our economy. A system which does not allow postponement of either an entitlement or a duty—on whichever we come down—seems to be flawed in a very important respect.

I should like to make a brief contribution of two or three points to the debate. This is an excellent Bill in terms of its aspirations and the sort of society we could become. However, the noble Baroness was right in saying that the crux of the matter is whether there should be compulsion or entitlement. My noble friend the Minister is aware that I have some concerns that I should like to explore here and I look forward to hearing his response.

Placing in the Bill exemptions to compulsion is the wrong way to go. If we introduce a narrative which says that in certain circumstances you do not have to be educated, we are almost saying to teachers and educators that in certain circumstances you do not have to educate certain groups of children. Whether it is because they are in custody, are pregnant, or are carers, I do not like that list which exempts certain groups within a Bill making education compulsory. If education is going to be compulsory, we must have an education system which turns its mind to meeting the needs of every child and every young person, no matter what their circumstances.

My concerns are a little different. I have three points to put to my noble friend the Minister. Those of us who have been teachers for any length of time will know that the nature of educating 16 to 18 year-olds is different because it is optional. Talk to any teacher and he or she will say that the attraction of taking a sixth form class is, to put it bluntly, because the kids have chosen to be there. One of the great changes in further education came about when the old YOP kids were brought in and it became compulsory. I should like the Minister to reflect on the nature of 16 to 18 education when it becomes compulsory. It is quite a significant point.

I want to relate one story about a sixth form teacher who said to me that the nature of teaching AS level today is different from what it used to be because more children feel that they have to be there. Schools, colleges and workplaces where attendance from 16 to 18 is compulsory takes away from what almost might be described as a young person’s university. If young people are there by choice, it invites a different teaching style from compulsory education. That has huge implications for the organisation of 16 to 18 education.

My second point is that the years from 16 to 18 form a bridge between childhood and adulthood. At 16 there are hardly any legal entitlements to adulthood, but by 18 you have them all. Between 16 and 18, those entitlements come along in dribs and drabs. The Bill causes me a bit of a problem in two respects: first, it makes the decision that the responsibility for education between 16 and 18 lies with the young person. The responsibility to be educated moves from adults to young people aged 16. The Bill gives a clear message that at the age of 16 you take charge of your own education. You make the decisions, and if you make the wrong ones and go against the law, you carry the consequences. In terms of choosing whether to be educated, the Bill makes it clear that the move from childhood to adulthood takes place at 16, not at 17 or 18. The problem is that that rests uneasily with compulsory education. We do not have compulsory work, for heaven’s sake. There are implications if you do not go to work, and rightly so, but we do not impose compulsory activity in any sense. Can my noble friend explore further the fact that the decision about education moves to a child at the age of 16 but the state makes it compulsory to take on an activity?

Thirdly, my main objection and concern is this: I see the benefit of the Bill in making education from 16 to 18 compulsory only if it creates a commitment to a lifetime of learning and relearning, skilling and upskilling. I am not interested in compulsion from 16 to 18 if no one goes on learning afterwards. It has to keep people in the system. Does my noble friend not think there is a risk that compulsion at 16 to 18 could turn people off? I taught back in the 1970s when life was a lot different, but I see some elements of that system of education coming back, albeit in another form. My first headmaster was a wise person who would say, “What we should do is make them all leave school at 13 and get them back at 14. Those children would come back wholly committed to learning and we would do better with them”. He did not mean it as a serious suggestion, but there is a lot of truth in what he said. At some point in a young person’s life, a gap in education can commit them to a lifetime of learning. I worry that the compulsory element might mean a lifetime of never wanting to learn again.

As I said in my speech at Second Reading, I am waiting to be persuaded because in every other circumstance the work of the Government and that led by my noble friend is absolutely excellent and can get us to a wondrous place. I hope that in his response my noble friend can spend a few minutes exploring these issues.

The noble Baroness has said many of the things I wanted to, so I shall begin by explaining why I could not support the earlier amendments. I feel that large categories of young people are generalised although they are the individuals who need real opportunities. That was the point of my question after the Minister’s response. Many young people, when given the right support, like the young mother mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, might well benefit from education, but the support has to be carefully constructed and put in place at the right time.

From a long career of working with severely disaffected families, I know that a young person does not necessarily desire to be in the position they are in and that the whole family has led them to that point. I find it extremely difficult, therefore, that a 16 year-old who has been given very little opportunity fails to go further in education because of difficulties in their family. As I said at one of our consultations with officials, I feel that this is somehow a white middle-class issue. I say that because it is often young people from a steady background, from whatever culture, who have the opportunity to go into further education. That is why I am very keen to see support services developed before we introduce any compulsion.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, rightly told me that I was trapped. I am glad to be. I would like to distinguish my remarks on Amendments Nos. 4 and 7 from those on Amendment No. 10. On Amendments Nos. 4 and 7, which I had not expected to speak on, I am already parti pris in supporting the Bill, although I very much want us to avoid criminal sanctions. I wrote a long article, by my standards, back in November or December about the problems of motivating young people who, at 14, had had quite enough to carry on learning until 16. I took the perspective of the teacher and the head teacher. They have enough problems already, I thought. However, I was influenced by the fact that we are moving towards a radically different option at 14, which is fundamental to this issue: giving certain young people, as a matter of choice, an opportunity to engage in a different form of learning, such as the young apprenticeship, which has been extensively piloted from the age of 14 and had an excellent Ofsted report recently, and the vocational diplomas.

A lot of work needs to be done on the vocational diplomas. I suspect that those who composed the curriculum had in mind what today’s comprehensive schools and teachers could offer in practice rather than what was desirable. That led me to start proposing, as I have continued to do since, the option of going at 14 to a technical college that is especially equipped to offer a hands-on approach to learning by doing, rather than by sitting, reading and listening. I believe that this is fundamental.

When I was the chairman of the body concerned with the national curriculum, the greatest personal battle that I fought was to introduce the GNVQ as an option at 14. That was about learning in a group by finding out, rather than sitting and listening. Its motivational effect was profound. I regretted the fact that, to increase its standard, it was changed to become the applied GCSE. The academic community grabbed it and changed its character and the salt was lost. My willingness to support the Government's basic principle on compulsion, subject to Clause 39 being liberally interpreted, is congruent with a really radical option at 14 for a different experience of education and learning.

I come to the challenge from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. I cannot do other than support Amendment No. 10. In doing so, I am not forgoing my right to speak on Amendment No. 210—just before we rise for the summer, no doubt. I think I see the logic behind what the noble Baroness was saying. It is irrational to say that you may have a level 3 learning experience up to 18 as a matter of right, but you may not have it the following week. Surely, if there is a right to have education up to level 3, you should have the right to take it when you judge that it is right for you. I cannot see the logic in denying it.

The alternative argument is the one I offered at Second Reading: it is not a right of the individual but a national imperative. We have all backed the realisation, so strongly expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Leitch, that we need radically to increase the number of pupils achieving level 4. He said, and the Government agreed, that we should aim for at least 40 per cent at that level by 2020. I have said since that the Germans and the Americans are there already, and it is not enough: we should aim for 45 per cent. Furthermore, the noble Lord, Lord Leitch, identified that even to achieve 40 per cent we need to engage in education again those who have already left. In Germany, where 70 per cent achieve level 3 by their early 30s, there is plenty of power to lift the figure of 40 per cent at level 4 to the kind of figure that I am talking about. I was arguing that if we are serious about the Leitch agenda, as the Government are, we need to recognise that it will be achieved only by investing in people who have left education. You cannot get high numbers at level 4 unless you have a base at level 3. Therefore, we must do all that we can to encourage people who have left education to complete level 3 and then move to level 4.

A further argument was adduced yesterday at a meeting at which Chris Humphrey spoke. Some of us may have been there. He pointed out that the demographics of the next decade, with declining numbers of young people, make it all the more important to invest in people who have left school. Only by investing in people’s education and skills capital can we increase productivity to the levels of our competitors, because we are lacking in that regard. For two reasons, then, I support the amendments from the noble Baroness, but I reserve my right to have another go on another day as the department, in our discussion this morning, undertook to give me guidance on the realities of what the noble Baroness and I would like to see.

I will be brief because I have also been caught in the trap, as it were. I am happy to support the amendment from the noble Baroness and have been absolutely fascinated by all the issues raised during this discussion. We all know that it is in the Government’s interest, in today’s world, to see that we upskill at any stage in our lives. Therefore, we really should be looking at every possible incentive for people to do that.

Further to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, I left school after the school certificate and I suppose that I am an example of a mature student. I wished to earn some money—in fact, I needed to do so at that stage—and it was not until a lot later that I began to think of giving myself some advice, as the Equal Opportunities Commission was endlessly encouraging women who had not achieved to go back to school. It was keen on the Open University and the opportunities it created to take up those challenges. Yet I was equally fascinated by the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. There is a lot to be said for what her headmaster said to her. If you have decided what you want and need to do, if you have suddenly seen the light of how it benefits you—you are probably thinking more about yourself than the well being of the country—the motivation is very important.

I would probably go a little further than my noble friend Lord Dearing; I support quite a number of the other amendments spoken to. For me the whole attraction, which started some time before this Bill, is lifelong learning, which we should be encouraging all the way. I will pre-empt the last day of this debate: if it suited me and I had entitlement and no money, I would like to take a level 3 course in my full retirement. Frankly, that should be my right. I very much support the amendment.

Listening to the strong arguments deployed based on concerns about bringing more children into the criminal justice system, I find myself on the horns of a dilemma. After all, we have more children in criminal custody than several of our European neighbours put together, and that is a great indictment of our provision and support for vulnerable families and children. I also see the other side: the Devil makes work for idle hands. Sixteen and 17 year-olds who are not in school or training are susceptible to joining gangs or getting involved in other activity. I remember that when Louise Casey was charged to reduce the number of rough sleepers on the streets, one strong component of her policy was to find them what she called “constructive activity”. She felt it imperative to get them to do something useful and constructive. It is, then, a difficult question.

I would like to know more about the enforcement officer who will decide who can be exempted. It seems an important role, and it should be carried out by someone with a deep understanding of child development. Because of how we train teachers, sadly not all of them have that understanding. A special person is needed. I hope that the Minister can give some detail. It should probably not be necessary to go right up the hierarchy of a local authority before a decision can be made. I imagine that those decisions need to be made promptly.

Many good points have been made, but I feel most strongly about two. First, on the point made by my noble friend Lady Perry of Southwark and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, there are many people for whom a year out—a year’s peace while not in education—is an immense motivation and opportunity to set themselves right. We should not deny young people that.

Secondly, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, drew attention to the consequences of giving a child a criminal record. We should not take these things lightly. I tried, once, to persuade the then DCSF to take on as an employee a young man who had a criminal conviction. It said yes, but when it was realised higher up in the hierarchy that the man had a criminal conviction, the department took a policy decision not to employ ex-offenders. The department really should understand that many employers react in that way, particularly those interested in educated people, and that to give someone a criminal record as part of their education is to deny the benefits of that education then and in the future. It is not the way to go.

Two dialogues are in fact going on, because the Bill does not come into effect until 2013. One, on these Benches but involving the Cross Benches, is: what will we do with the Bill after the next election, when, all being well, we find ourselves having more influence over things, one way or another? It has been very constructive and enjoyable to listen to these Benches in front of and beside me on how we would take it—and I hope that our decisions would please the Cross Benches. However, I urge the Minister to pay attention to the consequences of the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. As it stands, the Bill will not affect the middle classes. If you are a kid with a bit of access to money and the world, you’ll play the system for six months until they get tired of you, at which point you will go abroad to work in the Alps or the Mediterranean for a year, and come back with six months to go. At that point, they will not be bothered with you anymore and you will have escaped the whole thing. This will bite only on those who do not have access to resources and who do not have the social experience that allows them that confidence. However, if one proceeds along the lines proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and make it an obligation not which comes to an end at 16 but which one has to work off at some stage in one’s career, that will no longer be the case: you cannot escape it by playing the system. If you play the fool for six months, you merely get six months more at the end of it. That is why I worked so hard at my chartered accountancy exams. Every time you failed a chartered accountancy exam, you had to spend six more months as a chartered accountant. I was determined to get through the first time and I did, and it was the first time in my life that I really worked hard. To make it a moving obligation greatly strengthens, rather than weakens, the Bill. You lose the motivation to escape something or to play the fool.

If it is a moving obligation, and is enforced, let us say, by making a note on someone’s national insurance records that it still exists, so that any employer knows about it and that if they take you on they are supposed to comply with the provisions of the Bill for time off for education, it becomes a real irritation to the young person concerned. Every time they apply for a job, will they want to be able to offer the employer only four days a week, with the fifth taken off? They will want quite quickly—certainly after a year or two—to get rid of that incubus and settle down and get the education that is required of them, freeing them up for an unencumbered life. Something which causes you continual irritation and difficulty, and makes postponing and avoidance something that you just do not want to do because it is getting in the way of your life, is ultimately a much more effective punishment than any form of criminal record. I support the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in the direction that she is taking, and I hope that the Government might see it as a way forward for their proposals in the Bill, in terms of the direction that they have chosen rather than that which we might take in a couple of years.

I am distressed to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, does not have a level 3 qualification. I have a practical suggestion: we should accredit for level 3 attendance at your Lordships' House, which is one of the most demanding activities that you could possibly undertake in terms of education or training. She would have so many level 3 qualifications that she would not be able to count them. Having gone through the whole ladder of qualifications up to PhD, I engage in no activity more demanding than having to prepare for debates here, so I think that she would qualify.

I apologise for perhaps having misled the Minister. I had intended to say that I took my own advice, applied to the LSE and was allowed to do a level 3 degree.

The good judgment of the LSE shines through. I am always mindful when I listen to my noble friend Lady Morris, who rightly highlighted the importance of lifelong learning, of the words of my great hero, Mr Gladstone, who, on forming his fourth Administration at the age of 83, declared that he had been a learner all his life. There were some people who believed in lifelong learning in the 1890s; the rest of us have been catching up during the past century, which is absolutely right.

By instilling a greater culture of learning among teenagers, the Bill will transform our learning culture further up the age range. There is a great deal in it about entitlements to education and training beyond the age of 18, which will further instil a culture of lifelong learning in the nation.

I could not have agreed more with the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, when she said that carrots work better than sticks. The problem is that when Parliament legislates for sticks it needs to do so in great detail. Therefore, large parts of the Bill are preoccupied with how the sticks work. That has to be the case, because if Parliament is putting in place penalties, it has to be very precise and set out in appropriate detail how enforcement regimes will work. However, the emphasis in all our policies is overwhelmingly on the carrots and the vast public expense at which we are providing them.

Perhaps I may run through some of those carrots that we are providing now and those that we will provide up to 2015 when the duty fully bites. We have introduced the education maintenance allowances: £500 million of public money per year will spent on giving direct public support to 16 to 18 year-olds from less affluent backgrounds so that they have the financial resources to be able to participate in education or training. Five hundred and twenty-eight thousand young people benefited from EMA payments in 2006-07. Around 45 per cent of learners in full-time education receive education maintenance allowances. Our evaluation of EMAs indicated that they have already led to increases in participation nationally of 3.8 per cent for 16 year-olds and 4.1 per cent for 17 year-olds. I could go through the associated statistics if noble Lords wished. I think that there is general agreement in all parts of the Committee that this is a big and worthwhile reform, whose effects will feed through more substantially in the coming years.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, referred to diplomas. Diplomas represent a revolution in the availability of appropriate qualifications, and are targeted particularly at those groups who have not been well served by the school system. My noble friend Lady Morris asked me to elucidate rather more our thinking on her first question, which was how we will affect the culture of learning in schools. If we were dragooning 16 to 18 year-olds to sit in the same classes, doing the same subjects as in the past, and if they had to sit unwillingly in AS-level and A-level classes in which they had neither the aptitude nor inclination to participate, I would agree that, culturally, it would be immensely ill-advised. However, that is not what we mean when we talk about the expansion of learning and training opportunities; we mean a much wider range of learning and training opportunities, including a big expansion in vocation-oriented courses—many of which simply do not exist—and in apprenticeship opportunities.

We are introducing diplomas this year. From September, diplomas will be available in construction and the built environment, creative and media, engineering, information technology, society, health and development. They are large areas of employment which desperately need well accredited vocational qualifications. From September 2009, diplomas will be available in business administration and finance, environmental and land-based studies, hair and beauty studies, hospitality, manufacturing and product design. From September 2010, they will be available in public services, retail business, sport and active leisure, and travel and tourism. And from September 2011, they will be available in humanities, languages and sciences. The diplomas will available at three levels—not merely at higher and advanced levels but, crucially, also at foundation level, which is equivalent to five GCSEs at grades D to G. They will be targeted particularly at those young people with whom—to echo the noble Baroness, Lady Morris—the education system has not succeeded by the age of 16.

She will know that I agree with her entirely about the importance of literacy and numeracy in primary schools. We are straining every sinew to improve the quality of education, literacy and numeracy available at primary school. I join her in regarding it as a failure of the education system that there remains a large group of children which, despite the improvements in recent years, has not reached the standards that it needs to reach by age 11. However, we cannot give up on them. We need to continue to provide opportunities for them, including beyond the age of 16.

Apprenticeships have a vital role in providing fit-for-purpose opportunities for young people beyond the age of 16, particularly those who are not well suited to continuing full time in the classroom. By 2013, which is when the first of the continuing obligations to remain in education and training up to the age of 17 will apply, we will ensure that an apprenticeship place is available for all suitably qualified young people, with significant growth in apprenticeships for older learners as well. This will involve funding for apprenticeships increasing by almost a quarter between now and 2010-11 to over £1 billion a year. By 2020, we aim to deliver over 250,000 apprenticeship starts and 190,000 successful completions. That is based on significant increases in recent years in completion rates, thanks to the work of all those engaged in apprenticeships, including employers. In 2006-07, these rates reached an all-time high of 63 per cent, compared to 24 per cent in 2001-02. It is not simply that the volume of apprenticeships will increase dramatically, targeted particularly at the groups that we are talking about this afternoon; we are paying greater attention to the quality of apprenticeships being provided and to all the factors that are crucial to seeing that young people complete them.

I thank the Minister for his careful and lengthy response on this important area. Can he provide some details about the enforcement officer in the local authority, perhaps at a later date? I recognise that the Minister will not wish to be prescriptive, but it is an important role, and I would be interested in indications about his or her level of seniority, the sort of experience and professional background that would be expected and other similar questions. The Minister has probably already explained why there is a duty on the children rather than on the parents. Could he say—in correspondence, perhaps—whether, in the other countries that he mentioned, the duty is predominantly on the children, rather than the parents?

I will write to the noble Earl setting out in detail the response to all those points.

I am grateful to the Minister for answering the concerns in our amendments on criminality. He mentioned Canada and Australia as countries that had a form of criminal sanctions. How do the other countries manage to enforce their compulsory age? Perhaps he could write to us on that.

One of the most important points in the debate was that raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, about the difference when teaching those who want to be in a classroom. I trained as a teacher and did my teacher’s training in Salford, and one of the years I took was the final year for those about to leave at 16. They did not even take their coats off. They were ready to be out the door as soon as they could. A most articulate young lady from the youth council spoke at the All-Party Group on Children and asked about the disruption that some of those young people would cause just because they did not know what they wanted to do. I still do not know what I want to do, and I hope that I am not disruptive. Jim Knight, however, answered her in exactly the same way as the Minister has answered the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, saying that this is not all about being in classrooms or education, this is about training. Is it not true that an awful lot of the training will be classroom-based? That is a real turn-off to some young people.

Perhaps I may also press the Minister on the effects of the problem of having something on your record, a point that was touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. All of us who took part in the Special Educational Needs (Information) Bill heard the moving story of the noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, and how having something on his record—not, I hasten to add, anything criminal but something to do with his learning abilities—had blighted his earlier career opportunities. It is an important point, and I would like the Minister to address it.

A number of noble Lords have raised this point. It is a point of real concern. The rehabilitation period for a fine imposed by a criminal court on anyone under the age of 18 is two and a half years, at the end of which that record is spent and does not have to be disclosed. Those who are more than two and a half years on will not have to disclose it and will therefore not have the record, which I think is what concerns the noble Baroness.

Would it not turn up on an enhanced CRB check? I think that we have all been briefed that it would.

I believe the answer is no; it would not turn up on a CRB check. I will confirm that and write to the noble Baroness. I believe that it would not turn up.

When the Minister writes to my noble friend, will he let her and me know how many young people in each of these countries have received a criminal conviction as the ultimate sanction in making them stay at school to 18? Secondly—

I am sorry. I believe the answer is that it depends on whether the police judge the information relevant to the post being applied for. That is the answer on my notes in respect of a CRB check.

The problem is that the police are pressed to do all the CRB checks that they are doing at the moment. If they have to decide whether they should disclose it, they will simply pass on the information and let the relevant authority or organisation decide whether it is relevant. It is a really big concern.

Perhaps I may complete my question. I would be interested in an answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on Amendment No. 4, which is where we started. What is the Government's reaction to the idea that the obligation to undertake two years’ education could by agreement, presumably with a local authority, be postponed?

That may not have been in my full briefing, but I will write to follow up on it. The position in this area is not entirely straightforward. The offence created in Clause 45 of failing to comply with an attendance notice is not punishable by imprisonment. It is therefore not a recordable offence, will not be automatically placed on the police national computer and will not be routinely disclosed in a CRB check. An enhanced disclosure, the highest level of check provided by the CRB, may include any information from local police records if considered relevant, which is the point that I was making earlier. The offence may therefore appear on an enhanced disclosure, but it depends whether the police consider it relevant. That is the answer to the point.

If the offence was not an imprisonable offence but a fine was imposed and the fine was not paid, one of the penalties—as with many offences on the statute book—may well be a period of imprisonment.

On a slightly different note, when the Minister described the OECD ratings of countries that had compulsion for 16 to 18 year-olds, I noticed that, although Belgium was first and does have compulsion, the other countries were fourth, seventh, fifteenth—I forget the exact numbers. However, it would be interesting to have some information about the countries that were second and third and perhaps fifth, six and seventh that do not have compulsion and to know how they succeed so well in keeping young people in education. They are clearly using carrots rather than sticks.

I did not hear an answer to Amendment No. 4. Are the Government prepared to allow the obligation to complete two years of education to be postponed?

No, we are not, for the reasons that I set out. We believe that it is important that young people are engaged in appropriate education or training between 16 and 18.

I rose briefly just then because I wanted to make a point that I thought might assist the Minister in answering that question. I would like to clarify. We have already indicated our intention to oppose the Question that Clause 2 stand part. Our amendment to Clause 1 is therefore not intended to compel somebody to take what we call in our amendment an “entitlement”. It is an entitlement. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has misunderstood us. Our intention was not that they should be compelled at some time during their life to take up that entitlement. It should perhaps be seen alongside our intention regarding Clause 2, which is the compulsion bit. I hope that makes our intention clear.

I thank everyone who has taken part in this important debate. Before I come to the Minister's response, I will say a few words about one or two of the contributions. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, I am concerned that no young people are excluded. She mentioned that she did not like the idea of exemptions. If you have exemptions and at the same time an entitlement, as we do, there is no danger that it will be used as an excuse not to bother to provide for their education. I would have the same concerns as she has if there were not at the same time an entitlement, but, as I believe that there is an entitlement, it is not really a problem. I very much agree with her about the difference between sixth form and the rest of the school. That was also my experience when I was in teaching. Probably one of the most effective things in my attitude to the compulsion element is that experience—when choice is there, success comes.

We all want young people to have success in their education. It makes the most enormous difference when young people have chosen what they will do and when they will do it. The element of choice made all the difference, and they succeeded better for it. I want to take away the compulsion element so that there is no need for exemptions. The noble Baroness commented on the danger that compulsion on 16 to18 year-olds could turn people off learning for life, and I agree with her and with the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, that lifelong learning is important.

On the list of exemptions, these were probing amendments. We were not saying that these are the categories for exemption; we were simply asking whether the Government realise that some young people may have difficulties fulfilling their obligation and what will happen in these cases.

I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. I do not believe that providing the right to postpone will exclude people, as long as the access, opportunities and support are in place. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, about the need to re-engage adults in higher qualifications, not least because the world is changing and people need to be reskilled and upskilled. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, made the telling point that compulsion has not worked for some young people up to the age of 16—the ones on which this Bill is focused—so why should it work after 16? The things that work are choice, support, assistance and encouragement. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for his support on the seriousness of the criminal record issue; we have had a little debate on the effect of a criminal record on the person’s life chances in future.

I thank the Minister for his detailed response. He talked about carrots and sticks and gave us a long list of all the initiatives that the Government have brought forward to improve young people’s educational opportunities and qualifications. Why, then, does he not have confidence in all these carrots? As he said, the EMA has already had a beneficial effect. After a fairly short period, there has been an increase of 3.8 per cent for 16 year-olds and 4.1 per cent for 17 year-olds. Then there are the diplomas, which, despite our reservations, we all wish a fair wind. The Government are also vastly expanding opportunities for vocational training and, we hope, for apprenticeships. With the taking away of barriers to access and the learning support contracts, which we know the Government are interested in and which we will come to in later debates, all these initiatives should, if properly implemented—I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland—make it very rare for young people not to voluntarily take up the opportunity to extend their educational qualifications.

The Minister talked about other countries, mentioning Germany in particular. There is a totally different cultural attitude to education in Germany. From the beginning of education, children there have very high-quality nursery provision and they do not start formal learning until they are six. I know that because my own niece has done it. So the situation is very different. The noble Lord talked about how successful all the countries that have compulsion are in getting young people to participate. That is a no-brainer. Of course if there is compulsion they are going to participate, but does it do them any good?

The Minister said that I was suggesting that local government officials had unfettered discretion. I do not believe that I used the word “unfettered” but perhaps I will read Hansard in the morning and check. I am perfectly aware of all the conditions that exist. The point is that it is the local government officer who is making the decision, based on the Government’s guidelines perhaps, and not the young person.

I ask the noble Lord a fundamental question: what good is enforcement? As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, pointed out, by the time the authorities discover that a 16 year-old is not participating, it is probably six months down the track. They chase them up and go through all the appeals—I accept that there must be an appeals process when you have some sort of criminal sanction—but all these things are going to take time and, by the end of it, the young person is nearly 18 and it is hardly worth bothering. The alternative is to look at the young person, see what the problems are and sort them out. We should not be waiting until they are 16 to do that. All these things need to be done many years before that because, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said, it is those who truanted when they were 13 or 14 who are going to be reluctant to participate in some way after 16.

I do not think that any of us in the Committee have the wrong impression about what the participation duty means. We are all aware that it does not mean that the young person who has not enjoyed sitting in a classroom has to carry on sitting in a classroom. But it is authority and the idea of education that has already turned some of them off. We need the totally different approach of encouragement, carrots, personal mentoring and an understanding of what the problem was in the first place. Did the young person have a special educational need that was not addressed at the right time and which caused them to go out into a PRU because they were excluded from school, or simply to truant and not be provided for at all? What was the problem?

Much of the Government’s approach is right. This framework of support, if it really gets delivered, is absolutely right. But why not wait and see whether the young people find it attractive rather than saying that we have to have compulsion? The impact assessment underestimates the potential cost of setting up that negative framework. We would rather have something positive—carrots, not sticks. I am sure that we will come back to these issues.

I think that I am being encouraged to go on for two more minutes, in which case I most certainly will.

The Minister listed a lot of foreign countries; I mentioned Germany. There are many more differences than just the compulsion element, as has been said. Can we please look at the other differences between what those countries do and what we do now? What sort of early years provision is there? Is there early diagnosis of difficulties? When there has been diagnosis, is provision made? At what age do they start formal learning? Is their reading programme prescriptive? What sort of transition stages are there between the primary level of school and the secondary level? Do they have the same problem that we have where young people very often fall behind for a year or so when they first go to the secondary school? What range of curriculum are they offered in the secondary sector? Have those countries already followed the route down which we hope the Government are moving to give young people a much wider range of courses, rather than expecting them all to be academic? It is rather simplistic just to list all those countries’ percentages of participation and expect that to constitute a suitable argument. However, I think that I have made my argument. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move that the House do now resume.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

House resumed.