Further Education: 16 to 19 Year-olds

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what support they plan to give 16–19 year olds in further education.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, we are committed to raising the participation age to 17 by 2013 and to 18 by 2015. We are protecting funding for 16 to 19 learning, expanding the number of apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds to 131,000 and creating more training places. We are also doubling the number of UTCs and have announced a £180 million 16 to 19 bursary fund, which will be targeted towards those young people who most need support to continue their education and training post-16.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I thank the Minister for that, as ever, helpful reply. In terms of the bursary fund, will the £70 million shortfall be arrayed on the 16 to 19 budgets that are already there? The recent AoC inquiry looked at reasons why students were not staying on in colleges and found that, for 94 per cent of colleges, the reason was access to transport. Local authority after local authority is doing away with 16 to 19 transport. Will my noble friend please look at this, because there is no point having good colleges and good courses if the students cannot get there?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

From the whole range of conversations that I have had with principals and with Members in another place from all parties who have brought them in to see me, particularly from rural areas, I am very aware that there are particularly acute transport provision issues, as my noble friend says. One of the points of the new discretionary fund, unlike the current one, is that schools and colleges will be able to make provision for transport. Local authorities have a statutory duty under the Education Act 1996 to set out what provision they are making for post-16 transport. However, I agree with my noble friend that that needs to be kept under review. We need to see what local authorities are doing and how they are discharging their duty and to bear in mind the importance of transport going forward.