Further Education: Local Authority Provision (Hansard, 23 January 1984)

§ Baroness David
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, Section 41 of the 1944 Education Act requires local education authorities to secure the provision for their area of adequate facilities for further education in accordance with a scheme of further education. Section 8 requires that they secure provision in schools for full-time education suitable to the requirements of pupils up to the age of 19, other than such full-time education as 6 may be made under the provisions of the Act relating to further education. It is for individual authorities to decide how to give effect to these requirements.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, and I understand from it that local authorities are not obliged to pay fees in a further education establishment. Would he not agree that it is an anomaly that a local authority should be obliged to provide education in a school for 16 to 19 year-olds but should not be obliged to provide for what may be an absolutely identical course in a further education establishment? Would he not agree that there should be no statutory bias towards one form of provision or another, and that they should be on all fours? Does he not think that young people should be able to choose freely which sort of education they are taking between 16 to 19, whether in a school or at a FE or tertiary college?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, I agree at least partly with what the noble Baroness has said. I accept that the position of the 16 to 19 year-old further education student is anomalous in that the home authority is obliged to pay the cost of provision at a college maintained by another authority only if they have given prior approval for that provision. The Government are committed to increasing freedom of choice wherever possible. This is one of the matters which are being considered by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State in response to the review of further education law.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the drill of my questions is towards asking for some sort of legislation about further education, for which I have asked many times before? There are so many anomalies. Sections 6 and 7 of the 1980 Act mean that parents have a choice about where their children, whether post-16 or under the age of 16, go to school. They can also appeal. This is not so if they wish their children to go to a further education college. The same applies to recoupment. It is essential if it is a school but it is not essential for another authority to pay if it is for further education. Could the Minister please press for early legislation to put these anomalies right?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, I could press for all I am worth, but whether or not anyone would take any notice is another matter. There are other priorities for legislation, as I indicated in response to a Question from the noble Baroness on 27th October. However, my right honourable friend is addressing the underlying issues of the efficiency and effectiveness of the further education system by other means.

§ Lord Kilmarnock
My Lords, I think I detected a gleam of light in the noble Earl's reply. Would he not agree that in the present unfavourable employment climate for young people very many more of them are likely to wish to continue in non-advanced further education rather than in sixth-form education? If the Secretary of State is seriously studying the matter, will the noble Earl come to the House and make a Statement on the result of the Secretary of State's deliberations?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, I cannot tell the House how and in what form my right honourable friend will make his statement. However, if it is in the form of a Statement in another place it is customary that I should repeat it in this House. I can give no undertaking, however, on that point.

§ Lord Graham of Edmonton
My Lords, from what the Minister has said I gather that there is the possibility that the present practice may be changed. Will the Minister accept that the general public, in particular the young people involved, cannot grasp the subtleties of the demarcation between courses of education in schools and those in further education colleges for those aged between 16 and 19? Surely we ought to be maximising the number of young people who are prepared to take advantage of the benefits of education. If there is a preference for attending further education colleges because it appears to young people to be more grown up to attend further education colleges than school, ought we not to encourage this by every means possible?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, if I suggested that the position was going to be changed, I gave the wrong impression. I did not say that. I said that my right honourable friend was looking at the possibility of change, which is a different matter. Yes, I agree that the position is anomalous and that it is difficult. At the same time, the system is working. I do not believe that there are any very great difficulties. That is the only undertaking I can give to the noble Lord and to the House.

§ Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, if local authorities do not have adequate or suitable educational or training facilities in their own area for disabled students, may I ask the noble Earl my kinsman whether they are obliged to send them elsewhere?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, local authorities are expected to assess the individual needs of each handicapped young person and to take into account special factors that refer to that individual young person. They have the power to provide for young people beyond the age of 19 as well as for those up to that age, and they have discretionary powers to provide financial support for any student in further education. Whether authorities send them in fact elsewhere I should not like to say. There are local authorities and local authorities.