Nineteen Year-Olds in School: Support (Hansard, 5 December 1990)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch)
My Lords, local education authorities have discretion to award grants, known as educational maintenance allowances, to young people who choose to remain at school beyond the age limit for compulsory schooling. It is entirely for the local education authority to decide whether it wishes to use them.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, I expected that Answer. The problem is that local authorities do not have the money to do that at the moment. The Government changed the social security system to deprive these young people of housing benefit and income support.
183 Does not the Minister think that these young people who, through no fault of their own, are still in the non-advanced system of education, should be given some form of help? We constantly hear that the Government wish to improve the participation rate of young people in higher education. If they are forced to leave in the middle of taking an A-level course, as some I have known, this situation will not help them.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the noble Baroness will not be surprised that I disagree with her. Local authorities are responding to the needs of these young people. First, perspective is important. As of January this year, from the most recent Form 7s, as the noble Baroness will be aware, there were 307,140 young people in the 16 to 19 year-old bracket; of that number, 19-pluses accounted for only 1,261. Against that, awards made in 1987 were 1,633 and last year 1,873. The needs of the most vulnerable in that category are being met by local authorities.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the sums available for educational maintenance allowances paid to individual young people are so low that any young person of 19 who is not receiving financial support from his or her parents will be unable to continue a course? Will the Minister agree that, in a situation where we are desperately trying to increase participation rates in full-time education, that is entirely unsatisfactory?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, the degree to which a young person is helped will be a matter for the local authority assessing the needs of a particular individual. It also needs to be said that a large group of vulnerable young people receive help not only from the local education authority but also from the Department of Social Security. They include children of single parent families; children who may be orphans without an acting parent or guardian; children with severe mental handicap or physical disability which means that they are unlikely to find work within 12 months of leaving school; young people, estranged from their parents or guardians, who may be in physical or moral danger; young people whose parents or guardians are in prison, chronically sick or mentally or physically handicapped; and young people whose parents are prevented from entering or re-entering the country. That accounts for a proportion of those 19-pluses. That must be added to the way in which local authorities consider other needs of local young people.
I believe that the needs of the most vulnerable in that age group are being addressed. Those who are able-bodied and fall outside that category are deemed to be able to see out the school year without financial assistance.

§ Lord Gisborough
My Lords, can my noble friend say what provision there is for people who are no more than simply late developers?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, all sorts of people are late developers. If they choose to remain at school beyond the statutory age, they are deemed to be able to be sustained by their families. If they fall into any of the vulnerable categories I mentioned, or find 184 themselves severely disadvantaged by staying on at school, the local education authority has the discretion to address their needs.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, is the Minister aware that it is not always through choice but often through necessity and what has happened previously that these young people are still in the non-advanced system of education? I was glad to hear the figures given. However, I should like to know whether the amount of money local authorities are giving—when they give it—is adequate to provide both housing and maintenance for a young person for the full course of their school year.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, we are speaking of the area of discretion for local authorities. We could spend time discussing the increase in local authority spending over the past decade. The priority given to this area is a matter for the local authority. The particular circumstances addressed by the Question tabled by the noble Baroness, concerning young people of 19-plus who are still at school due to a long-sustained illness, fall into the category for which a local authority could give sympathetic consideration to any application.