So what price for two more years of failure?

This was exciting: ministers determined to force reluctant 16-year-olds to stay on in education or training were challenged by one shadow minister espousing ‘synthetic phonics’ for reading whilst the other cited literary giants such as Marcel Proust and William Morris at the drop of a hat.

A leading academic and government adviser attacked the Bill as the destruction of the 16-18 job market. The committee stage of the Education and Skills Bill was one of the first under the new system involving evidence-taking and it was fireworks all the way. I am a convert to the new system.  

The spectre of a sad army of youths not in employment, education or training (NEETs) hung over the proceedings. Nick Gibb for the opposition argued forensically that compulsion does not tackle the root cause —that the current 11 years of statutory education is failing many young people with still no attractive pathway for vocational learning.

Forty thousand people leave school each year unable to read, write and add up properly — their functional literacy so poor that they could not write to tell their banks they had moved. The average reading age in prison is 11 years. How do you say to youngsters, that the answer to their plight, after 11 years of school failure, is to be forced to stay on two more years — or else risk being fined or ultimately brought before a criminal court?

I made the point, repeatedly, that basic skills should be tackled in primary school — long before they reach 16.

We were all struck by the excellent work of charities such as the Prince’s Trust, Rainer and Barnados who are trying to rescue these young people through job training.  Ann Pinney of Barnados pointed out the scale of the challenge posed: ‘They were overwhelmingly from disadvantaged and vulnerable backgrounds and all had very complex barriers to learning: homelessness, substance abuse, mental health problems, long-term under-achievement, low self-esteem and so on. These young people did not feel they had a choice at the moment because of their very poor experience of education to date.

‘The challenge in this Bill is to give those young people a real choice by making sure there is the right provision for them and the support to enable them to engage’. (Column number: 4, 1st sitting 22/1/08).

Nigel Haynes of  Fairbridge works successfully with some of the most disadvantaged NEETs and was against compulsion: ‘With the young people we deal with, the fact that they come because they want to and stay because they want to is a stronger motivation for change’. (Column number: 193, 6th sitting 29/1/08).

There was a strong thread through the evidence that it was wrong to criminalise young people who did not feel able or willing to pursue education further.

Professor Alison Wolf of King’s College London pointed out that the Bill would effectively destroy the labour market for 16 and 17-year-olds. In response to questions from Liberal Democrat David Laws, she criticised the Bill’s very rigid requirement of 280 guided learning hours for all 16- and 17-year-olds.

She gave examples to support her thesis that employers would avoid the extra burdens placed on them by employing adults instead.  She mourned the potential loss of on-the-job experience — demonstrably extremely valuable.

She was scathing about ministers’ predictions of economic benefits from people obtaining additional qualifications under the Bill, which she said are enormously exaggerated, because it is overwhelmingly likely that most people who gain additional qualifications under it will gain qualifications that have little or no economic benefit.

‘That might be justified if one were confident that they were going to be doing something that was extremely valuable. Since one is not, and since we know that on-the-job experience is demonstrably extremely valuable to people, I think we have to take the impact on the job market extremely seriously. I think the effect will be very serious and almost totally negative.’ (col 107, 4th sitting 24/1/08).

There was great discussion about whether the Bill would encourage real apprenticeships with training provided directly by employers, and how that could count towards a qualification. Conservative John Hayes asked how we can involve employers more closely given that many 16- and 17-year-olds in employment have become disengaged by classroom-style teaching.  

He pointed out that 59 per cent of 16-18-year-olds failed to complete their apprenticeship in 2004/05 and that the pilot programme for Train-to-Gain, a scheme to get employers to provide more training for their staff, produced no ‘systematic evidence that [it] had significantly increased employer provision of, or employer engagement in, training’.

He pressed for assurances that the new apprenticeships would be high quality and employer led. He pointed out criticisms by the House of Lords Economic Committee. Conservatives and Liberal Democrats felt the Bill contravened the spirit of data protection in allowing public bodies to pass over information of a broad nature about young people. Amendments to improve, and to make clearer, young people’s rights to protection were defeated.

However the minister, Jim Knight, did agree to look at how enforcement may impact on young people who are carers. Conservative amendments sought to limit the chances of a 16- or 17-year-old with huge responsibilities in caring for a sick parent or sibling suddenly encountering enforcement and criminalisation.

The independent school sector told us they were surprised to find  Ofsted  named in the Bill as their regulator, particularly as this removes an important resolution procedure when the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) disagrees with Ofsted. Any debate or dispute about Ofsted’s findings on its judgments of ISI currently goes to the department and the department resolves those disputes. In response, Jim Knight agreed to extend an independent resolution mechanism into such disputes.

The Committee had notable backbench contributions from Nia Griffiths who has a teaching background, Gordon Marsden who is recognised for his knowledge of skills and special education and Charles Walker who was able to put a business perspective.

However my overall impression was how helpful it was to debate the issues in the light of the testimony of the witnesses. What stood out was how pressing it is to improve basic education, as well as to encourage rather than force young people to learn the skills they will need to stay in work in an increasingly demanding world with far fewer jobs for those without education and training.

Oliver Heald is MP for  Hertfordshire North East.