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Voluntary scheme will start next year and is aimed at 100,000 children in danger of ‘falling through the cracks’ Nick Clegg will unveil a compassionate response to the riots in his keynote speech to Liberal Democrats on Wednesday by proposing that as many as 100,000 children at risk of going off the rails be offered a chance to attend two-week summer school prior to starting secondary studies. He will say the voluntary summer school can prevent children “falling through the cracks”. The £50m scheme will start next year, offering catch-up classes to help young people who he claims have lost touch with their future. His response is markedly different to the punitive one offered by David Cameron in the immediate wake of the summer unrest. Rather than attacking a general collapse in morality, Clegg argues the generation that rioted appeared to have lost any stake in society. He was struck by the number of rioters who had nothing to lose. “It was about what they could get here and now, not what lies in front of them tomorrow and in the years ahead. As if their own future had little value. “Too many of those young people had simply fallen through the cracks, not just this summer but many summers ago when they lost touch with their own future,” Clegg will say at the close of the party’s Birmingham conference. The point of transition from primary to secondary education at age 11 has often been seen by educationists as a critical moment when disadvantaged children fall behind. Clegg claims those who go off the rails in later years are those who struggled in school. Cash for the scheme will be allocated in England on the basis of the number of pupils in receipt of free school meals, and participation will be available to anyone identified by secondary schools as likely to be benefit from the catch-up classes. Classes may be run by secondary schools or voluntary groups. A wider dispute is raging between Clegg’s party and the Conservatives on how to respond to the riots. The Liberal Democrat justice minister, Lord McNally, revealed that Downing Street wanted the word “punishment” inserted into the legal aid and sentencing bill. He said the “little elves that work in No 10 helping the prime minister” had been at work. He warned Conservative ministers not to turn the legislation into a “Christmas tree bill” loaded with new ideas, adding that this could jeopardise its passage through the Lords. Downing Street said the word punishment would not be included in the bill, but the proposals set out by Cameron in the wake of the riots would appear. They include withdrawing benefit from parents whose children play truant. Liberal Democrats are insisting that any removal of benefits should be administered by magistrates courts, with no double jeopardy – those convicted being punished first by the courts and then the Department for Work and Pensions.Clegg will say he is leading a charge to end the deep injustice where birth is destiny, adding he has encountered fierce resistance from those who do well out of the status quo and do not want to see greater social mobility. He will say: “People keep telling me that it is too hard and that it is futile to push for fairness into headwinds of an economic downturn, or that it will just take too long and I should find some convenient quick win instead.” Britain will not be a liberal nation “until every citizen can thrive and prosper, until birth is no longer destiny, until every child is free to rise.” Claiming only his party is opposed to vested interests such as bankers, trade unionists and media moguls, he will also lay down a challenge to Ed Miliband to accept reforms to party funding due to be published shortly. “I don’t think unions should be able to buy themselves a political party.” Nick Clegg Liberal Democrat conference 2011 Liberal Democrat conference Liberal Democrats David Cameron UK riots Children Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk