Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

House of Lords, 14 October 2009.

Committee (7th Day)

Lord Hunt of Wirral (Conservative)

My Lords, we have tabled these amendments to draw attention to yet more problems which we see as being inherent in the Government's desire to replace the Learning and Skills Council with at least two different bodies. We discussed the matter on Monday at some length. I do not want to occupy the Committee for any great period of time on this amendment, except to say that the Association of Colleges has expressed concerns that further education colleges will have to respond to different bodies.

Clause 61 enables the YPLA to carry out performance assessments on colleges, but Clause 100 allows the Skills Funding Agency the same privilege, alongside, rather than in co-operation with the other. These amendments were raised in the other place, where discussion centred around the desire to ensure, first, that colleges do not have to deal with more bureaucracy than is strictly necessary and, secondly, that assessments are carried out in a consistent and co-ordinated fashion so that there is no duplication of work, but also that nothing is left uncovered.

Amendment 154 would mean that the YPLA,

"must consult with ... the Skills Funding Agency",

the relevant local education authority in England and Ofsted when undertaking performance assessments which will help inform funding decisions. Amendment 212 would place the same duty on the SFA, which in addition would have to consult the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. Given the Government's desire to create these new bodies, it seems sensible that every effort should be made to ensure that they communicate effectively to ensure coherence across the education administration. I hope that the Minister will be able to answer these questions directly. I beg to move.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, earlier I indicated to the Opposition that we were not too happy with this amendment, but I misinterpreted it and I apologise to the noble Lord. In fact, we have a lot of sympathy with what he is suggesting. It is quite clear that, as the LSC has in its role set targets and assessment schemes for colleges, the YPLA will be doing that not only in relation to the providers of education and training, it will presumably be judging local authorities as well, and it is appropriate that they consult. I was slightly surprised that the amendment mentioned,

"a local authority in England",

because the YPLA should be in consultation with all local authorities rather than just a single one.

We spoke at length on Monday about the need for the YPLA to be seen to be a co-operative authority working in partnership with local authorities as well as with the subregional groups. We want to see that sense of partnership and we have tabled a series of amendments that we hope the Government will look kindly on to give the YPLA a greater sense of co-operation within the terms of the Bill. These two amendments fit in very well with what we are asking for.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Labour)

My Lords, I hope that I can offer the reassurance that the noble Lords opposite are looking for. As we have heard, Amendments 154 and 212 would place a duty on the YPLA and the chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency to consult specified bodies. We would all agree, because we have debated it before in Committee, that that is an extremely important principle. The YPLA and the Skills Funding Agency should work in partnership. BIS and DCSF are already developing a new performance assessment scheme in the post-16 education and training sector for introduction in 2010. That is being done, as this House would expect, in consultation with key sector partners.

This initial consultation has involved a wide range of stakeholders, noble Lords will be pleased to hear, including the Association of Colleges, the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Children's Services. The dialogue has taken place already without a specific statutory requirement, although I appreciate noble Lords' concerns. The expertise of our partners has been invaluable in helping to shape the new arrangements. I can reassure noble Lords that the end result will give the coherence sought by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. It will also give a common assessment approach for all types of provider, which will enable us to make valid comparisons of performance across the post-16 sector, and bring greater transparency to commissioning decisions, which will be extremely important. That will ensure that providers are treated fairly and understand the basis of decisions.

The Secretary of State will be able to set out in his grant letter, or in guidance under Clause 74, what schemes he expects the YPLA to be involved in and who should be consulted. We can be clear to the YPLA and all those concerned—all our partners—what the performance assessment tools will be. Importantly, the Secretary of State may issue guidance to the chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency under Clause 155. I may have signalled to the opposition parties, with some help from officials, that we will commit to using these powers to ensure that the bodies that noble Lords are obviously concerned about will be consulted. I can make a commitment that we will be using this guidance to ensure that the consultation takes place and the coherence that noble Lords are looking for will be made possible. I do not want to detain the Committee now but it would be helpful for me to write to noble Lords about the framework for excellence that is in development, so that noble Lords opposite can have further background on what the programme will be like.

Lord Baker of Dorking (Conservative)

Before my noble friend speaks, I applaud him for moving the amendment. It touches on the grave weakness of the Bill, namely the administrative system that will be set up after it has been enacted. At the moment FE colleges have one funding agency, the Skills Funding Agency. In the future, they will have four funding agencies—the Skills Funding Agency, their own YPLA, HEFCE and the apprenticeship body. It will not be a dialogue but a trialogue or a quadrilogue. There will be constant consultations and discussions; it is a recipe for jungle warfare. Each of those bodies will be under severe financial constraints and none of them will want to be very supportive of what is being done. In my discussions over the recess with members of the FE world and, indeed, the education world, they all looked on this as a total nightmare.

I cannot believe that there has been a guiding ministerial hand behind the Bill from Ministers from two departments. Nobody seems to have considered the administrative turmoil that will be inflicted on the whole area of 14 to 19 training and education. It is extraordinary. I have never known a Bill that has needed so many Ministers' letters to explain parts of it. There was a letter before the House rose to explain the system that I have just outlined. Not only are there four bodies, there are regional assessment committees, local assessment committees and a national assessment committee, all replacing the Learning and Skills Agency. I do not know whether Ministers have totally taken on board how complex this will be. I only hope that the shadow Ministers have because I do not believe that this system will work. I do not suppose it will feature strongly in our manifesto to say that we will overhaul all this, but we will soon find, when in office, that this system will simply break down and not do the job that is needed, which is enforcing the 14 to 19 curriculum.

The 14 to 19 curriculum is at the heart of the Bill. The Government were right to identify a 14 to 19 curriculum, but to deliver that curriculum there must be 14 to 19 institutions, not some in FE colleges and some in schools. Until that matter is resolved, there will be confusion, jungle warfare and a great deal of ill will and non-performance. I only hope that Ministers will take this to heart. It goes to the very heart of the Bill. We are setting up the most complex administrative regime that has ever been inflicted on any part of our education system. Can Ministers think of any other part of the education system which is as complex as the system that they are creating? I shall answer for them, since that was a rhetorical question. There is no part of the education system that is as complicated as this. It does a disservice to the area that we are all most interested in, which is improving the training and skills base of many young people in our country.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

I add a grace note to what my noble friend has said with such trenchancy. The children and young adults involved in this are at the most vulnerable stage of their lives. The transition, particularly for those who are in care or depend on benefit, from 17 to 19 is a time when they have to learn to stand on their own feet, when they been accustomed to having their hands held all the time. If their educational programme is going to be thrown into chaos, then, in addition to having to learn how to do that, they will have to struggle with the ropes and strings attached to their education. If they fall foul of that, I am afraid that there will be more young people lost to society.

Lord Lucas (Conservative)

My Lords, would it not be better to have just one body that is responsible for designing these assessments? It seems to me that it ought to be Ofsted, which actually knows how to do these things, rather than a couple of newly created bodies which are going to have to find their own way. If one body was responsible for creating these assessments and had, naturally, to consult with the many created agencies which have an interest in these things, at least it would get done simply and consistently, and once it was done it would not be subject to endless argument and tussling.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench)

My Lords, what has been said illustrates the real concerns that everybody has with this Bill. Will the Minister answer the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, about the wording of the amendment—namely whether,

"(b) a local education authority",

is right, or whether it should encompass a much broader concept? However, my main point is that I hope the Minister will take back the real concerns about the way that this is being set up.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Labour)

My Lords, I agree with much of what has been said about the detail and complexity of many Bills, not just this one. The first Bill on which I worked was the Welfare Reform Bill, which was incredibly complicated. Part of the complication in this Bill arises from the fact that we are talking about the machinery of government changes. Regardless of how complicated the back-wiring is, it has to be described in the Bill, which means that Ministers have to devote time to writing letters and circulating them. That is certainly the way that I like to work. I shall continue to write letters and I apologise if noble Lords find that too burdensome.

We expect colleges to have two conversations: a conversation with their local authority on pre-19 provision and a conversation with the SFA on post-19 provision. Our aspiration and commitment is to simplify for institutions and learners the experience of engaging in 14 to 19 and post-19 education. I cannot answer the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, about the amendment because it is not my amendment. However, as regards the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on assessments, the framework for excellence is being developed by BIS and DCSF in partnership with providers. Through the performance management arrangements we aim to reduce the number of inspections that institutions have to have so that Ofsted can move towards its lighter touch approach. This is about providing practical tools, but as I said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, as regards the guidance, we are happy to give a commitment that we will be explicit about the consultation that he wishes to see.

Lord Hunt of Wirral (Conservative)

My Lords, as I think the Minister will be aware, I detect a general view on all sides of the Committee that this is not a simple system. As my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking put it, there is great worry that it will be a rather complicated system which a lot of people will find very difficult to operate within. However much guidance you supply, the more bodies you create, the more complex the structure automatically becomes. In a way, there is a demand—we should just have one main body, instead of trying to divide responsibilities. That has come across in a number of these debates.

I say to the noble Baronesses, Lady Sharp of Guildford and Lady Howe of Idlicote, that I recognise that there are one or two things about the amendment that render it slightly imperfect, and I will take them away to consider them. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, for not explaining at the outset that I did carefully think about the point that she raised on Monday, and I endeavoured to put it as a matter of principle and practice in moving the amendment rather than tying myself to the precise detail.

Coming back to the point raised by my noble friends Lord Elton and Lord Lucas, I sense that we are now getting before us very complicated legislation. I know that the Government have been in power for—what is it?—12 years now, and they have a lot to answer for. They keep amending, reamending and creating new bodies here and there, with new emphases. Do they not realise that they are creating more complications and more bureaucracy all the time? There must be a simpler solution and a more streamlined operation.

My spirits were uplifted when the Minister said that she agreed with much of what my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking said. I hope that she will read the comments that he made, because I sense that they were echoed right around the Chamber. If she manages to come forward on Report with a series of amendments that present a streamlined, easy-to-understand approach that will make life less complicated, there will be general approval. Will she permit us a little cynicism and scepticism about whether that is likely to happen? As my noble friend pointed out, we are dealing with a number of ministerial responsibilities and a number of different departments, and life is getting too complicated. I am worried about the bureaucracy. Whoever is going to operate the system will need more than just guidance; they will have to simplify the system. Where better to do that than in the legislation itself, before we approve it?

So many points have been raised in what has been a valuable and short debate. I hope that the Minister will do a little bit more. I heard her say "partnership" and mention a "common assessment approach", which I warmly applaud. I hope that she recognises that we are looking for a little bit more to try to reassure everyone who has to operate in what is going to be a very complicated field. That is the purpose of my amendment. I am delighted that it has had the effect it has, which was to make the Minister think pretty deeply about exactly what she and her ministerial colleagues are creating. Against that background, I have much pleasure in withdrawing the amendment.

Amendment 154 withdrawn.

Amendment 155

Moved by Lord Low of Dalston

155: Clause 61, page 45, line 19, at end insert—

"( ) The YPLA must establish a quality control framework which includes—

(a) learners;

(b) parents;

(c) organisations representing learners."

Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench)

Amendment 155 would require the YPLA to establish a quality control framework which includes learners, parents and organisations representing learners. I shall also speak briefly to Amendment 161, which says:

"The YPLA must ensure that learning difficulty assessments are carried out by suitably qualified persons ... within 3 months".

I declare again my interest as president of SKILL, the National Bureau for Students with Disabilities. I thank the Government again for their constructive engagement with SKILL over the summer on the guidance for Sections 139A and 140—that is, the guidance under the Act of last year. I cannot emphasise enough how useful it would be if we could see the Government's response to the consultation that has taken place on the guidance before Report. However, even without that, I can say at this stage that, in the light of the engagement over the summer between Ministers and SKILL, it will be possible to withdraw the amendment this evening.

I would like assurances on three points to clear up one or two remaining loose ends. These are matters on which I spoke at some length when we debated Clause 40 earlier in Committee. First, I seek assurance that the YPLA will establish a quality control framework to underpin the assessment process, involving disabled learners, parents and organisations representing disabled learners, as called for by Amendment 155. In other words, the reassurance that I am seeking is that it will be put in place by administrative action if it cannot be written into the Bill. I also hope that a complaints procedure will be put in place.

Secondly, it would be good to know that a senior person will be required to sign off the Section 139A assessments, as a means of providing a framework of accountability—something that was found to be sadly lacking by the court in the case of Alloway v London Borough of Bromley.

Thirdly, I would like to be reassured that the guidance that will be produced on the Bill will indicate that local authorities should arrange an assessment of disabled young people's learning and support needs, including their transport needs as well as wider transition planning, wherever they believe that an assessment would be beneficial, regardless of whether the learner has been assessed or supported before. In other words, I seek an assurance that all those needing an assessment will receive one. If the Minister will help me on these points, it should be possible to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, my name is attached to this amendment, along with that of the noble Lord, Lord Low, and I heartily endorse what he has said. I will speak briefly about one category of students about whom I am particularly concerned—disabled students who do not have a learning disability assessment to start off with and who are sometimes put at a disadvantage in post-16 provision and support. We know that, quite often, those who drop out of the school system at 16 and move into the college sector are found to have learning disabilities of one sort or another. It is vital, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, said, that at an early stage in their post-16 career assessments should be made and proper provision and support given to them.

This was brought to my attention by my honourable friend in the other place, Annette Brooke MP. She had a constituent with learning difficulties who, after some time, signed up at a college to do a level 1 course. However, because by that time they were over 19, they got no support whatsoever. If they had been given a proper learning difficulty assessment at an earlier point, they would have been entitled to support through to the age of 25, but, as no such assessment had been made, no support was forthcoming. They were in some difficulty, although they could appeal to the college. That casework issue was brought to my attention by my honourable friend, as she felt that there was an anomaly. People do not necessarily have learning difficulty assessments but, when they get one later, they are then given the support that they need at that point, including financial support.

Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench)

My Lords, here again is a classic example of where co-operation is needed between ministries. In earlier parts of the Bill, we discussed the problem of those with learning disabilities and learning difficulties who are in custody and what should happen to them. A draft National Standards for Youth Justice Services has recently been published for consultation. It talks about the standards that should be observed in young offender institutions and others. I hope very much that in pursuing what my noble friend Lord Low has recommended, with which I thoroughly agree, the Minister will make certain that, instead of having two separate systems for the same sort of people, the Ministry of Justice will be involved in close liaison with the YPLA, which has the responsibility for this. That should happen not least because, in the future, once these assessments have been carried out, as one hopes, the YPLA will ensure that something that has been identified as needing treatment is continued in custody, just as when something is identified in custody it oversees what happens in the community on the release of that individual.

Lord Hunt of Wirral (Conservative)

My Lords, the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, show great insight and consideration for the consequences of the Bill's provisions and reflect the desire that I detected across the Committee to promote the best quality of education. As has been explained, the first amendment would ensure that the views of learners and parents were taken into account regarding the quality of education and possible improvements that could be made. I hope that the Minister will let us know whether there is already a channel for representations from these groups and how it works. Does he acknowledge the importance of receiving the views of those at the receiving end of the new machinery to ensure that the best possible service is provided? The Committee will be aware of the various interests that I have recorded in the Register, including, like the noble Lord, Lord Low, association with a number of groups that are keen to see Amendments 155 and 161 accepted.

Quality control is a necessary part of educational provision. Recent evidence from the National Audit Office's survey Supporting People with Autism through Adulthood shows that learning difficulty assessments carried out under new Section 139A of the Education and Skills Act 2008 have been lacking in quality and that statutory obligations have not been met. Does the Minister agree that action must be taken to fix that? The NAO study showed that only 17 per cent of respondents thought that Section 140 assessments were "very useful". That is a very low percentage. Does the Minister agree that a quality framework, informed by the views of parents and learners, might enable that figure to rise? If the Minister cannot support the amendment, it would be interesting to hear his alternative strategy to ensure that learning difficulty assessments are carried out with the utmost regard for quality.

At a recent Skill seminar, it was mooted that perhaps, as has already been mentioned, Section 139A should undergo some form of national auditing in order to ensure quality, or that there should be a system of incentives and penalties to encourage quality. Perhaps the Minister will respond to those recommendations.

We also very much support the second amendment in the group. Amendment 161 specifies that a learning difficulty assessment must be carried out by a suitably qualified person. That sounds like common sense; nevertheless, despite that being a seemingly obvious approach, the National Audit Office report that I mentioned took evidence from a student support co-ordinator at a further education college, who said that,

"the usefulness of the Connexions Section 140 assessments very much depends on the individual Personal Advisor. Many do not have specialist training in working with learners with learning difficulties or disabilities".

Can the Minister explain that failing and expand on what he considers "suitably qualified" to mean?

I agree with the request that the YPLA must ensure that it has regard to the timely delivery of learning difficulty assessments. Does the Minister think that three months is an appropriate length of time? Does he have any figures available that might inform the Committee about how long the process normally takes? Finally on these two amendments, can the Minister update the Committee on the results of the consultation regarding draft guidance on Section 139A assessments? Can he, for example, inform us whether Skill's concerns regarding specific mention of the YPLA, so that the guidance will reflect the agencies introduced by the Bill, have been, or will be, dealt with? I warmly support the amendments.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the agencies with whom we have dealt for all their co-operation. We have had a lot of dialogue, as was reflected in the noble Lord's opening contribution.

I entirely agree with the sentiment behind Amendment 155 that the YPLA, when developing schemes for the assessment of the performance of education and training, should be guided by the use of learners, parents and organisations representing learners. I reassure the noble Lord about the arrangements that are already in place and will continue once the YPLA is established to ensure that the views of learners and parents are given the highest priority. The YPLA will adopt and develop the framework for excellence, which will provide a quantitative performance assessment tool with standard indicators against which to assess providers. This will include an annual learner views survey, which will enable all learners to voice their opinions about the quality and effectiveness of the learning that they receive. Consultation is already under way with key stakeholders, including the National Union of Students and Skill. I am advised that we hope to be able to issue the results of the consultation before Report.

I sympathise with the noble Lord's concern about the issue raised in Amendment 161. We have been working closely with Skill to improve the statutory guidance given to local authorities about their duty to carry out learning difficulty assessments. We intend to issue the revised guidance, together with a report on the consultation, in the late autumn. This will be followed up by a further document in early 2010, providing guidance arising from the changes described in the Bill, once enacted.

The guidance to be issued this autumn will reinforce the importance of local authorities having a quality assurance system in place covering Section 139A assessment. In addition, it will emphasise, through the inclusion of good practice case studies, the importance of senior management accountability for the quality of the assessment. Learners and their parents and carers will have access to a local authority's complaints procedure, an issue that was raised in this debate.

We will also ensure that the guidance sets out clearly, based on effective practice, what should be included in a Section 139A assessment, such as transport, which concerned the noble Lord, Lord Low. It will also set out who should be given an assessment. The importance of a multi-agency approach to assessment will be highlighted and examples will demonstrate wider transition planning.

Before I conclude, I shall try to deal with some of the questions raised. The noble Lord, Lord Low, asked whether someone could get a Section 139A assessment if they had not previously been assessed. There is no need for a pre-16 year-old statement. It is right that that should be so—for example, a learning difficulty may be diagnosed only later in life.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, was concerned that young people without an LDA are at a disadvantage in post-16 education. Our view is that that is not the case. We make support available through the additional learning support funds and an LDA is not necessary to qualify for the additional learning support. Our figures are that there are currently 320,000 young people with self-declared learning difficulties or disabilities in FE colleges being helped and supported. I do not think that there is ever room for complacency, but important progress has been made.

One of the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was whether the new guidance will reflect the National Audit Office's report on Section 139A assessments. In view of the inconsistent quality of learning difficulty assessments, we have instituted a major review of the system supporting those with additional needs. This will be conducted by Ofsted and will include issues around transition from school, assessment and support services. We will wait until that review has reported before making any changes to the post-16 assessment process, but we see that as an important issue.

I am not sure that I can answer the question about training for Connexions advisers now, but I shall do so in writing. There is training, but I share the concern that we need to have consistency in the quality of the training and advice given, because this is an important group.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, asked whether the assessment would be the same for those in young offender institutions. I think that it should be, but I shall confirm that in writing. I am looking at the Box and am being told that it is the same assessment, so it looks like I do not have to confirm that.

With those statements and with the assurances given, I trust that the noble Lord will feel that he can withdraw the amendment.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

Before he does so, can the Minister tell us a couple of things about what is going on at the moment? I think he mentioned a national learners' survey in which every learner will be able to express an opinion. Will he tell us what that comprises, how many people contribute to it and what is done with the result? Secondly, the Minister referred to 320,000 students with self-declared learning difficulties in CFEs. What provision is made for them?

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

I think I made it clear that they qualify for the additional learner support funding.

I do not have such a ready answer on the national learner survey and I will have to come back to the noble Lord on exactly how that will work. I think he wants to know exactly who is participating in it and what will happen with the results. We need to come back to him on that point.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

The Minister said that those without a learning difficulty assessment are not at a disadvantage. However, there is free tuition up to the age of 25 if you have a learning difficulty assessment. If you do not have a learning difficulty assessment, when you are 19 you have to start paying tuition fees. There are substantial financial advantages in having an assessment, and if young people do not get an assessment before they are 19 there can be considerable difficulties.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

I have been told that the report on the annual learner survey will form part of the framework for excellence.

I do not want to dispute the noble Baroness's point about the disadvantage of not having an assessment. I will come back to her on the arrangements that we make to ensure the point that we all believe in: that everyone has an assessment.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

That reinforces the point of Amendment 155: that it is important, when the student is in the transition phase from 16 onwards and goes on to some sort of post-16 education and training, that there is a high-quality assessment of their capabilities.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

We were told just before the Summer Recess that 7,000 teachers were going to be trained specifically to make these sorts of assessments. May we be told how they are getting on—if not now, then in a letter perhaps?

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

We will reply to the noble Lord in writing.

Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench)

I thank all noble Lords for their support for the amendments in this short debate. I also thank the Minister for his very full and, I think, forthcoming and accommodating response. I asked for three assurances and I think that he has met them all. He has indicated that a quality control framework will be established; that senior persons will be involved in these assessments in order to provide a proper structure of accountability; and, perhaps most important of all, that the guidance will indicate who should receive an assessment and that assessments will not just be confined to those who have been supported at an earlier stage. They are all important points, but that may turn out to be one of the most important.

Much will turn on the guidance, and we will want to look at that. I am very glad to learn that the Government hope to make it available before Report so that we can look at it. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, particularly pressed on the need to ensure that those who have not had an assessment but who may still have a learning difficulty are not put at a disadvantage, and can have their needs met and be given the support that they require. As we continue to discuss the Bill, going forward to some amendments later this evening, we will find that is really quite a key issue. Discussions have been continuing on that issue, as well as the ones I have drawn particular attention to with these amendments.

We may have some distance further to travel before we have a complete unity of view between ourselves and the department on that issue—the question of support for the wider, more numerous group of students than those who have had a learning difficulty assessment. We have further to go in discussing that issue. However, regarding the particular issues I have raised with these amendments, I should like to thank the Minister again; his responses have been very helpful and, with that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 155 withdrawn.

Clause 61 agreed.

Clause 62 agreed.

Clause 63 : Prohibition on charging

Debate on whether Clause 63 should stand part of the Bill.

Lord Lucas (Conservative)

My Lords, might I ask a couple of quick questions on Clause 63? I am not necessarily expecting a quick answer. On subsection (1), I am interested to know how the usual sort of charges which hang around education fare under this particular wording. Those are things like charges for musical instruments, trips, the cost of a uniform or other workwear required for particular applications. How will those fare under that wording?

Similarly, I read subsection (4) as saying that if the YPLA is providing any funding to an institution, then all the education provided by that institution is subject to this clause. If I am reading that wrong, I should be grateful for some comfort. I would also be interested to know what is proposed in the regulations under subsection (5).

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Labour)

My Lords, I shall do my best to respond to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. This comes about because of the raising of the participation age and the requirement that post-16 education becomes compulsory as we go forward with that. We therefore have to apply the prohibition on charging to a higher age group; that is what this clause is about.

My assumption—and I look behind me as I say this—is that charging for uniforms and musical instrument lessons will apply in the older age group in the same way as it applies at present in the younger age group. I was not getting a lot of inspiration on this, but I have some now, so I can tell noble Lords that regulations made under subsection (5) of this clause will specify what would or would not be considered as prohibited charges. We propose that the regulations will reflect the conditions that the LSC currently applies, as set out in the LSC Funding Guidance 2008/09: Principles, Rules and Regulations. For example, paragraph 47(c)(xi) of that guidance states:

"Charges may continue to be made for ... travel, board and lodging".

We therefore expect that to be included in the regulations and for that to remain the policy position. Subject, of course, to Royal Assent of the Bill, regulations made under this section will be subject to full consultation before coming into force. I am willing to give the noble Lord further information if he so requires, but as I have said, legislation passed recently to raise the participation age means that from 2015 young people will have to continue in education or training until their 18th birthday so, as far as practicable, they should not be charged for this education or training. As the noble Lord knows, this clause will place a duty on the YPLA to exercise its functions in relation to funding so that young people accessing education or training are not charged inappropriately. It is the age of the young person that is key.

Lord Lucas (Conservative)

My Lords, that is a helpful answer to my questions on subsections (1) and (5) but not to subsection (4). I do not expect the noble Baroness to respond to that now and I am content to receive a letter.

Clause 63 agreed.

Clause 64 : Securing provision of education and training

Amendment 155A not moved.

Amendment 155B

Moved by Baroness Verma

155B: Clause 64, page 46, line 11, at end insert—

"( ) The YPLA may arbitrate and decide on sixth form provision in academies where there is local disagreement."

Baroness Verma (Conservative)

We now move on to discuss the position of academies within this legislation. As the Bill stands, Clause 75 allows the Secretary of State to require the YPLA to enter into arrangements with the Secretary of State. These arrangements may require the YPLA to carry out specified functions of the Secretary of State in relation to academies, city technology colleges and city colleges for the technology of the arts. We on these Benches believe strongly that the YPLA is not the appropriate body to take responsibility for the extremely important task of supporting the success of academies. According to the Government's own description, the YPLA is a body being set up primarily to,

"support and enable local authorities to carry out their new responsibilities".

The summary of the Bill's proposals which the Government issued then describes how the YPLA will perform this function. It is only when we reach the final sentence on the YPLA that it states:

"The YPLA will also perform a number of functions on the Secretary of State's behalf in relation to academies".

That speaks volumes. From this description it appears that academies have been included under the auspices of the YPLA because the Government needed to place them somewhere. As there are around 400 academies, of course we acknowledge that we must seek the best way forward. But this is not it.

In this Bill academies have been pushed under the YPLA for no other reason than that the Government are attempting to avoid a difficult thought process. The YPLA is a body being set up to lead local authorities in their education functions in relation to those aged between 16 and 19. It therefore seems entirely inappropriate that it should also have functions relating to academies, most of which have pupils between the ages of 11 and 18; some even have primary schools attached. Surely the Minister can see that the YPLA is therefore entirely inappropriate for academies. Will she inform the Committee of any other ideas that were raised regarding the status and position of academies?

The academies have raised serious concerns on the issue of independence, and our amendments attempt to alleviate them. Amendment 162 would mean that the Secretary of State can enter into an agreement with an academy only if it has agreed. Amendment 163 would require the YPLA to support the objective of academy autonomy when exercising the specified functions on behalf of the Secretary of State. Amendment 164 would insert a right of appeal if an academy believes that the YPLA has made an unreasonable decision. Amendment 166 would provide exemptions by removing the power to specify that particular functions may include those set out in Section 482 of the Education Act 1996 dealing with the setting up and running of academies, and Section 35A relating to academies and land. Amendment 168 would remove the power of the YPLA to enter into any agreement with the Secretary of State connected with the issue of monitoring and assessing school performance. This is a job for Ofsted. If the Government feel that Ofsted is failing in its duties, any changes introduced should surely be to improve Ofsted itself.

We have encountered great concern among the academies about independence. That the Government are moving down this unnecessary path is particularly worrying given that they claim to be supportive of academies. It should be noted that there was no proposal in last year's White Paper for the YPLA to be responsible for academies. There were no discussions at that point with any major academy sponsor. Can the Minister account for this incredibly important omission?

Furthermore, Mike Butler, the chairman of the Independent Academies Association, wrote a letter to the then Schools Minister, Jim Knight, in which he set out the academies' concern that, during the past couple of years:

"It appears that with every consultation, each missive and even new legislation from the DCSF there comes further erosion of the independent status of academies".

He also commented that academies were established to,

"turn around endemic educational underperformance in the most challenging of contexts in respect of socio-economic deprivation. To do so, it was recognised that new organisations had to be established that would be freed from the constraints of Local Authority control, from the old governance arrangements and from the vagaries of local bureaucracy".

We are concerned that Clause 75 instead reduces the autonomy of academies and ties them more closely into local authority control.

In this vein, the Minister has been keen to assure us that the YPLA will have no control over funding decisions, but academies are concerned that it will, albeit through indirect routes. They are worried that local authorities will be able to influence what courses schools can offer under their "planning and commissioning" hat. As schools are funded according to the courses that they offer, local authorities will have the power to influence funding in this way. A key concern, therefore, is that local authorities, which are accountable to local councillors for the success of schools, are more likely to choose their own schools rather than independent academies for specific courses.

Amendment 155B probes the status of academies with regard to sixth form provision. As I understand it, under the Bill as it stands, an academy would negotiate its initial sixth form provision as part of a funding agreement with DCSF. However, any expansion would be dealt with through the local authorities or the arbitration of the YPLA.

Academy associations and federations have expressed concern that the expansion of an academy to include a new sixth form might initially appear uneconomic compared with the economies of scale of, for example, expanding a large FE college; indeed, this is already happening. A recent example from a London borough demonstrates the point extremely well. It was hoped that an academy could be set up in the borough, but the local authority stated that opening an 11 to 18 academy to replace an 11 to 16 school did not fit with the local commissioning plan. In fact, the reason that the local authority refused permission was that it was worried that the success of the academy would undermine a post-16 college nearby, which would not be accepted locally.

What is to stop new providers being thwarted in other areas when trying to open post-16 provision by local authorities tied up in local politics? In our previous debate on Amendment 102A, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said that we should be reassured that decisions would be made that "put pupils first". However, academy federations have expressed concern that although the LSC is already subject to this rule, this has not stopped poor decisions which have prevented academies expanding.

The noble Baroness pointed out that Ministers would have to consult with local authorities, and that to date no academies without sixth forms have been opened. Considering that these changes are so new, that is not surprising, but it does not preclude it happening in the future. We do not think that all local authorities would act in this way; some might act in a more favourable manner. Nevertheless, we do not want to countenance any risk to the success of the academies programme. It therefore seems inappropriate to place academies under an unsuitable body while also risking the independence which is so integral to their success.

Academies are concerned that YPLA oversight could lead to increased local authority influence and so align them with the YPLA's broader plan. They are worried that the YPLA might not take into account the wider benefits of school reform which would bolster the success of academies and help to reverse the endemic underachievement in areas that are most in need of achievement. This ties in with the fact that it remains unclear in the Bill which functions may be transferred. The Minister will understand that this uncertainty and lack of clarity is a major concern for academy federations. They fear that these clauses open up the possibility of losing contact with DCSF advisers who—I am sure the Minister will agree—have been crucial to the success of academy schools. Will the Minister offer any reassurances?

I do not wish to delay the Committee unduly on this matter. Our Amendment 169ZB, however, is designed to show that more should be done to clear away barriers and reduce constraints on academies. To this end we would argue that instead of building on legislation to increase control over them in any way, it should be made easier to set up new academies that are free from the control of local authorities. The benefits of this are clear. New academies were set up in Hackney, for example, a London borough with a most troubled educational history. These schools, which have been allowed to thrive under their own auspices, have been largely responsible for Hackney's rise from sixteenth to fifth in the value-added educational rankings of London boroughs.

These success stories are the reason why we think that it is even more important to preserve the independence of the academy institutions. We would push it further and encourage the setting up of new academies as free, non-selective schools that would be set up by, for example, existing educational providers, charities, trusts, voluntary groups, philanthropists, and co-operatives on behalf of parents and pupils. All of them would be independent of local authorities. That would help ensure that standards rise across the country. Parents would have much more choice about the school that their children attended. Does the Minister have sympathy with this notion? If so, can she reconcile it with the seeming desire to place academies further under local authority control?

In conclusion, we are worried that academies will find their innovation, success and freedom obstructed by the Bill. We wholeheartedly support the academies movement but find it difficult to support a measure with which they have so many problems. I beg to move.

Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, it has been extremely helpful to hear what a Conservative Government would do with the academies should they be given the confidence of the electorate at some time in the future. But I turn to what the Government have done to them. It occurs to me that they have created a monster. It might be a benign monster in many ways, but it is a monster. They started with a few academies, which became tens of academies and then hundreds of academies. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Verma. It is clear that Part 3, Chapter 4 is designed to do something about the quandary in which the Government find themselves. You cannot run 400 schools from the department. It seems to us, as it does to the Official Opposition, that it has been very much an afterthought to put the academies into YPLA's portfolio of responsibilities, and that it is not necessarily the best place for them.

Many academies do a very good job for children, but that is hardly surprising, because most of them are shiny, wonderful and beautifully resourced new schools. They attract the best teachers and parents who take a lot of interest in their child's education and who would choose to send their child to these schools. Those circumstances in any school would lead to considerable success. We congratulate the schools and the children on that success, but our vision is of an education system that is a service to the whole community—not only to the children who are at the school at the moment, and the parents of those children, but to the children who will come down the track seven years later when the present cohort of children has gone. We therefore see the local authority's role as somewhat more important, as the democratically elected representative of the whole community. That is why our vision of the academy system is slightly different from that of the Official Opposition.

We would like local authorities to be able to bring academies more closely into the local family of schools, with more co-operation between them. Although I am happy with the idea that the noble Baroness has just outlined in Amendment 169ZB—that there should be a review of academies legislation 12 months after the commencement of the Act—I would like that review to include the effects of an academy on other schools in the neighbourhood and to talk to local authorities about whether they wanted academies in the first place. As we all know, the only game in town these days if you want a new school is to have an academy, or you simply will not get the funding.

As for our Amendments 165 and 167, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, expressed concerns about the YPLA's ability to control the funding of academies. This matter was discussed at length in the Public Bill Committee in the other place. The Minister, Jim Knight, stated:

"we have no intention of requiring the YPLA to enter into funding agreements with academies ... Even if we did want funding agreements to be negotiated with the YPLA in the future, by law the contracting party would still be the Secretary of State. Therefore, the Secretary of State and the Department will take an active interest in any funding agreements for the setting up of academies".

"Take an active interest" is a very strange expression if you are contractually involved in an agreement. However, he continued:

"My understanding is that the only academy funding agreement that can be undertaken is the one between the Secretary of State and the academy sponsor. It is therefore not possible for the YPLA to enter into such an agreement".—[Official Report, Commons, Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill Committee, 19/3/09; col. 448.]

So the impression of the Minister in another place of what the Bill will allow the YPLA to do in relation to funding agreements is clear.

However, the NUT, which has briefed us about these two amendments, has had its legal eagles look at the Bill. They feel that a coach and horses could be driven through Clause 75 on this matter and that an ambitious YPLA could enter into such an agreement under the Bill. All we are asking in Amendments 165 and 167 is for the Government to close that loophole and to make it absolutely clear that the Secretary of State has the contractual responsibility and that the YPLA cannot do it. These are technical amendments—they are not principled amendments, particularly—on a matter that needs to be put right.

As to the amendments moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, we feel that the arbitration referred to in Amendment 155B may be quite useful if there is a local disagreement on sixth-form provision. We feel that, if Amendment 162 were put in, there would be no need for the YPLA to have the responsibility, so we do not see the need for it. On Amendment 164, we believe that a right of appeal is reasonable, should the academies feel that the YPLA has made a decision that is unreasonable in the circumstances and we would support that. On Amendment 168, we agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, that monitoring and assessment of school performance is Ofsted's job and not that of the YPLA.

The Minister has an amendment in this group, Amendment 169. We were pleased to see that and we welcome it. It relates to not including functions of making, confirming or improving subordinate legislation. We feel that these matters are so important in the picture of secondary legislation in this country at the moment that such things should certainly come back to Parliament; the YPLA should not be able to do them. I have already mentioned Amendment 169ZB regarding the annual review, in which we would want to include the effects on the wider school family, not just the academies, albeit that many of them do a very good job.

A Liberal Democrat Government would not get rid of academies; I should like to make that clear—not that we are necessarily expecting it to happen. As I said, we have a public service here for the whole community and it is vital that the democratic representatives of that community should have an appropriate say in the range of schooling that is offered to children and that no children are disadvantaged by the presence in their midst of these schools, which are quasi-independent but funded by the state. Many of them are very good, although some of their selection processes have, shall we say, given rise to questions in the past.

Baroness Perry of Southwark (Conservative)

My Lords, when we are concentrating in these amendments on the technical arrangements—indeed, this part of the Bill gets into technicalities—it is worth reflecting on why it is important that academies have autonomy. We are making an assumption that it is a good thing that they are independent and autonomous and perhaps we should remind ourselves why that is so important.

We have at the moment probably the greatest disparity in our nation's history between the performance of children in the poorest schools and those in the best schools. It is appalling that we still have a considerable number of schools where very few children—fewer than 20 per cent—attain the necessary five good GCSEs whereas others are regularly attaining 92 per cent, 95 per cent or 98 per cent.

For many decades now—in fact, for over a century—the local authorities have been in charge of local authority schools in the most deprived areas and we have not seen any improvement. I remember vividly, in my days long ago as a chief inspector, that when we were asked by the then Secretary of State to prepare a map of the most deprived areas of cities, and after we had worked away for many months doing so with the advice of all our troops out in the field, one of the clerks responsible for mapping pointed out that the maps exactly overlaid those of the 1930s. Schools in exactly the same areas had been designated as areas of extreme disadvantage educationally 40 years later.

Something drastic is needed, rather than just encouraging local authorities to make every school a good one. I am tired of hearing that; I have heard it for 30 years. They have not succeeded in doing so. I am a great supporter of local authorities—local education authorities have been huge contributors to the quality of education over the years—but they have not cracked the issue of areas of extreme educational and social deprivation.

However, the academy programme has begun to do that. I declare an interest as a trustee of Bacon's, which is a Church of England academy that has over recent years made astonishing changes to the lives of hundreds of children. The Harris academies in south London have so far turned around the lives of more than 18,000 young people. That is why it is desperately important that academies are allowed to experiment and innovate. They should be allowed to bring in different hours of schooling, as many of them have done, and different contracts for teachers, requiring them to do more in different things, as well as bringing in different areas of the curriculum which may not be in the national curriculum. All those freedoms, quite apart from their shiny new buildings, have enabled the academies to turn around the lives of many thousands of children. Of course, we support the programme and want to see it vastly expanded, with far more than 400 academies, but we also want to see the absolute autonomy of those schools to perform differently from local authority schools and to tackle a problem that has remained for over a century.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

Just to put shiny new schools in perspective, it is important to remember that what actually delivers a first-class education is a first-class teacher, not a first-class building. My noble friend's first amendment deals with sixth forms. The presence or absence of a sixth form in a school affects not only the attitudes of children at the school but the calibre of staff that are attracted to it. Therefore, the award of a sixth form is an integral and important part of setting up an academy. My noble friend thereby addresses a very important point. A local authority, faced with a choice between an academy and preserving a successful sixth form, could condemn the academy and its much wider effect to failure—or it might not come into existence, simply because it was denied a sixth form. Some form of arbitration independent of the local authority is absolutely essential.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Labour)

My Lords, I am delighted to respond to an extremely important debate. With the Committee's forgiveness, I will take time to go through the points that have been raised. In some ways, I am speaking to the Committee, but I also speak to those outside the House who have made a great contribution to the education of children and young people in this country through their involvement in the academies movement.

I strongly believe that this Government have made a hugely significant impact on school improvement in this country. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we have transformed the performance of our schools. Back in 1997—although I do not have the exact numbers in front of me—the number of schools that failed to achieve more than 30 per cent of pupils with five good GCSEs was measured in thousands, whereas now the number of schools qualifying for national challenge status is well down to the low hundreds. Academies have played an extremely important part through their innovation, strong leadership and fresh resources, as well as through the work that they do. I pay tribute to them, their leadership and their sponsors—and, of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, reminds us, to the teachers serving in them.

I hope that I can give the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, some reassurance, too. She asked whether we could put right some of her concerns. I hope that, if I can make some of the tweaks that she mentioned, I can look forward to her support in taking forward the new shape of the clauses that would flow from those tweaks.

I am delighted that there is a perception that middle-class children are attending academies, but I want to remind the Committee that academies have a higher proportion of children who are entitled to free school meals. They serve, as the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, explained so eloquently, some of the most deprived and challenged communities. We strongly support the work of the Harris academies, to which she referred. I repeat that there is nothing that we are doing that would inhibit the great contribution that academies have made and will make in the future.

I believe that I can offer the reassurances that noble Lords are looking for. As we have heard, the provisions in this Bill are designed to help us to move forward towards our target of 400 strong, high-performing academies. We are committed to preserving all those innovations in academies and the autonomy that has made them so successful in delivering better outcomes for pupils. We do not believe that the proposals will undermine that success. I want to explain how they will, in fact, strengthen the academies programme and enhance the support that we are able to offer academies.

These provisions are enabling. They allow the Secretary of State to make academy arrangements with the YPLA; they do not require him to do so. We know that some sponsors and principals have doubts about how the arrangements with the YPLA will work in practice, particularly, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, in connection with the commissioning of sixth-form places. I understand that we have to provide reassurance at this stage. I accept that this a new way of operating. However, we are strongly committed to consulting academies on the details to make sure that we get this right.

Over the past few months, we have held a number of consultations and meetings with those concerned and will continue to do so. We have established a reference group of academy sponsors and principals—it has already met and is scheduled to meet again tomorrow—which will focus in particular on sixth-form commissioning and funding. We will also consult widely with sponsors, particularly those running a number of academies where their particular expertise has a lot to offer. We want to hear their specific concerns so that we can address them and clarify any uncertainties.

I can commit to providing, by Report, an outline of what we plan to include in the Secretary of State's policy guidance to the YPLA in relation to academy arrangements. That outline will also set the key principles that should govern the way in which the YPLA operates in relation to academies. I would expect those principles to include absolute respect for the autonomy of academies that noble Lords have spoken about.

In the other place, both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats said that the current way of working was unsustainable—we have also heard that today—and would not ultimately serve the long-term needs of academies. We have heard in detail about that. Sponsors also agree. Dan Moynihan, the chief executive of the multi-sponsor Harris Federation, said in the oral evidence sessions, as many noble Lords will have read:

"It makes sense for the Department to have an agency to take care of academies. Clearly the Department was never meant to be a local authority, so we are perfectly happy with that".

There is common ground among us that the department should not end up being the biggest education department in the country.

Simply removing Clause 75, as in some ways we are debating now, would leave us in the current position, which academies and others both agree is not suitable. Ultimately, that would risk the quality of the education that pupils receive. The question, as the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, posed, is: what is the right agency? I understand the position of those who argue for a separate stand-alone agency to undertake academies' functions, but that approach would be misguided at this stage. Such an agency would be relatively small, but it would still carry all the overheads of establishing a separate organisation. We estimate that having such a separate agency, rather than the YPLA, would add costs in the region of £900,000 per annum. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, asked whether we had considered this and we have.

I will set out what the YPLA can offer and how we can build on what we have already put in place to reassure academies. We intend that the YPLA will continue to provide the same sort of funding, challenge and support services to academies as the department does now. Peers were very generous about the contribution that DCSF staff have made to developing and working alongside academies. We have every intention of creating absolutely the right environment for the change so that those people can remain and will choose to move to the YPLA. As the programme grows, we see scope to enhance that service, with the benefits that critical mass will bring. That will be achieved through a regional network of YPLA offices which will allow much better awareness of the local context, particularly around the quality of local provision across the board, but also around local demographics and learner trends. We very much want to learn from the multi-academy sponsors about how they work with their academies in school improvement. There is much to learn there. We are very mindful of the need to ensure that academies are properly represented in the governance structure of the YPLA.

The YPLA board will reflect the partners, sectors and young people it serves, including academies. As noble Lords know, this is set out in Schedule 3, which ensures that, in appointing a member, the Secretary of State or YPLA must have regard to the desirability of appointing a person who has relevant experience in any of the YPLA's functions. In addition, and subject to the successful passage of the Bill and the approval of the Commissioner for Public Appointments, we expect Les Walton to become the chair of the YPLA. Les brings a wealth of experience to the role with his close links to the academies programme and extensive experience in education. I can confirm that we have established through the LSC a YPLA committee to advise the LSC and the DCSF on setting up the YPLA, and on any transition issues that the new arrangements require. This committee already has significant representation from academies in the form of David Wooton, principal of the Grace Academy in Solihull, and Pete Birkett of Barnfield College, sponsor of two academies in Luton.

In addition, the YPLA will be recruiting and appointing a director of academies who will report direct to the chief executive. This person will have credibility with academies and the expertise to be able to champion them. I know that concerns have been raised about the extent of the YPLA's involvement in new academies, and some of the amendments that we are debating seek further to clarify the position. Let me reassure noble Lords that under these arrangements, academies will continue to enter into, and be governed by, funding agreements with the Secretary of State; there is no intention for the YPLA to enter into funding agreements. Therefore, to close the loophole that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about, we are prepared to bring forward on Report a government amendment which will prevent the YPLA entering into a funding agreement to create an academy.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, says, we also know that there is nervousness about post-16 commissioning but, as I have said, the Secretary of State will continue to make decisions about new sixth forms in academies, having consulted the local authority. Nothing is changing here, compared to where we are now. We appreciate that sponsors and principals are concerned about potential disagreements between the academy and the local authority over additional places in an existing academy sixth form, as described by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma. We expect such disagreements to be unusual, since academies would be playing a full role in shaping local provision alongside other providers in local 14 to 19 partnerships. The YPLA will play a full role in helping to facilitate such agreements, but it will do so as the agent of the Secretary of State. We believe that academies and local authorities will agree the appropriate level of provision between them in the majority of cases, but even here the YPLA must ratify agreements as the decision maker.

I am drawing to a close. The bottom line here is that, under the proposals in the Bill, the YPLA will be the body responsible for funding academies and will therefore make the final decision about the number of places to be funded. The YPLA will be the agent of the Secretary of State and act under his guidance. Please note that the Secretary of State's continuing legal responsibility for academies would mean that any interested party could complain to the Secretary of State about the YPLA, and he would have to look into whether or not the YPLA had acted reasonably in the circumstances of the case and rectify any problems. We are prepared to consider, after further discussions with academy sponsors and principals, and the opposition parties, whether we could table on Report any further government amendments that would make these arrangements clear in the Bill, including those in relation to the complaints mechanism that I have just described.

Turning briefly to the government amendment, given our concerns, last week we tabled Amendment 169. It clarifies that the YPLA will not have the power to take responsibility for making subordinate legislation in relation to academies. We do not intend that the academy functions carried out by the YPLA will include the making of regulations, as I am sure noble Lords would expect me to say, having heard my remarks so far. The amendment clarifies this by excluding academy functions from the definition in the Bill. In speaking to Amendment 169, I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to move Amendments 155B, 162 and 168. As I have said, we are prepared to consider tabling further government amendments on Report to provide further reassurance on what we believe to be the concerns underpinning the amendments that we are debating now. I look forward very much to further discussions. I have spoken for rather a while and am aware that there are a few points that I have not addressed. I am happy to follow those up in writing if necessary.

Viscount Eccles (Conservative)

May I ask just one question? How can it be right to say that the YPLA will be the chosen agency for academies, which I think is what the noble Baroness said, and not have it in the Bill?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Labour)

I think it is in the Bill. The concern that noble Lords are voicing is that academies and academy sponsors are looking for a fuller explanation of how the relationship between the Secretary of State, the YPLA and the academies will operate, and more clarity about, for example, how matters would work if there were disagreements between the various parties.

Viscount Eccles (Conservative)

My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness said that it was on the face of the Bill in the form of an enabling possibility. I think that she went on to say that enabling means enabling; it does not necessarily mean that it will take place. Parliament may well normally expect enabling legislation to come forward in some way in the future, but for a matter as important as this it would be much better if, by Report, some flesh was put on the bones of enabling legislation so that we could see what was intended statutorily.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Labour)

My Lords, I am trying to be extremely helpful and accommodating. I am sure that the work that we will do between now and Report will be as helpful as possible. I hope very much that I will be able to satisfy the noble Viscount. I am very happy to discuss the matter further with him before Report to ensure that that is achieved.

Baroness Verma (Conservative)

I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, obviously supports the academies' success. We all share her concerns about the schools that are still underachieving. That is why we on these Benches believe that all schools should be able to free themselves from local authority control. However, we should remind ourselves that some academies serve underachieving communities and have raised educational attainment in some communities. My noble friend Lady Perry set out fluently the difficulties that academies have faced and the situations that they have managed to turn around in some of our most deprived areas. My noble friend Lord Elton mentioned the difficulties that some academies are already facing in respect of sixth-form provision. As ever, my noble friend Lord Eccles raised the serious technical points that the Bill seems to overlook.

I listened very carefully to the noble Baroness's response. I find it incredibly difficult to understand why the Government believe that academies have to be delivered through the YPLA. I am pleased that the Government will meet representatives from the academies movement tomorrow and I look forward to hearing about the outcome of that meeting. However, I remain thoroughly unconvinced that the Government's response meets our concerns. I shall read very carefully what the Minister has said but I assure her that if we do not find the government amendments satisfactory we shall return to the relevant amendments on Report. I do not think that anyone on this side of the Committee is convinced by the Government's arguments. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 155B withdrawn.

Clause 64 agreed.

Clause 65 : Intervention for purpose of securing provision of education and training

Amendment 156

Moved by Baroness Sharp of Guildford

156: Clause 65, page 46, line 21, leave out "YPLA" and insert "Secretary of State, upon receipt of a recommendation from the YPLA,"

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

I move Amendment 156 and speak to Amendments 157, 158, 159 and 160. There are, so to speak, two separate sets of amendments within these four amendments, and I wish to speak separately to Amendment 160. Amendments 156 to 159 pick up the theme that I developed when we discussed the YPLA on Monday. Essentially, we talked then about the YPLA being a more friendly consultative body, but it is, of course, an appointed body. At the moment it is appointed largely by the Secretary of State although, as we indicated, we would like to see a wider representation in the membership of that body. The fundamental question behind this issue is whether an appointed body, the YPLA, should have the power to issue directions to elected local authorities. Our amendments seek to ensure that the YPLA is not a dictatorial body but is a consultative, friendly organisation working in partnership with local education authorities. If it needs to issue directions, as distinct from guidance, it must work through the Secretary of State. An elected Minister can tell an elected body what to do. Amendment 159 deals with complaints. Complaints should be directed to the Minister, who can then take action. The purport of these amendments is to make clear that directions should come from the Secretary of State, not the YPLA.

Amendment 160 falls into a completely different category and comes from the Association of Colleges. The new system of funding for 16 to 19 provision by local authorities, via sub-regional groups and the Young People's Learning Agency, could potentially be very complicated and increase the likelihood of delays occurring or genuine mistakes being made. The overall aim of the system must be to ensure that colleges and schools can plan and provide education and training for their students in an efficient and timely manner.

When we discussed the first group of amendments this afternoon, we talked about the complications that will arise from the number of bodies that a further education college will have to deal with in terms of the YPLA, local authorities and others. However, colleges already deal with a large number of authorities. They deal with the HEFCE and employers with regard to apprenticeships, so they are dealing with a large number of different funding streams, and I greatly admire the way in which they do so. However, over the past few years the main funding stream for most further education colleges was undoubtedly the LSC. There have been problems with LSC funding because the colleges' academic year starts in September but the financial year runs from August to the following August. Therefore, by the end of July, you need to have your budget in place for the following financial year. The aim has always been to get the final figures from the LSC by the end of March or the beginning of April. However, over the past few years these figures have not come through in many cases until the very end of July. Even when colleges are dealing with only one funding authority, the LSC, they are experiencing great difficulty in getting their future budgets agreed. Negotiations often continue right through to 31 July.

The new system will be even more complicated. To date, colleges have negotiated only with the LSC. I have received a letter from the chief executive of the Association of Colleges. The letter states:

"To remind you this is the process through which funding will reach Colleges".

It is a seven-step process. The letter continues:

"The YPLA will help local authorities to carry out their new responsibilities by developing a national framework to support planning and commissioning, ensuring coherence of plans, managing the national funding formula and providing strategic data and analysis.

Each local authority will assess supply and demand for 16-19 provision in their area.

Each local authority will then take this assessment to one of the sub-regional groups of local authorities, of which it will be a member. This group will agree the commissioning plans for their sub-region.

The plans will then be agreed by a regional planning group which will scrutinise the local plans and ensure they are coherent, can be funded within the regional budget and will deliver the 14-19 entitlement.

Regional Government Offices 'will contribute to discussion of regional priorities and support local authorities in undertaking their new responsibilities. They are, and will continue to be, a conduit for information to flow from sub-regional groupings ... to DCSF'".

That came from a parliamentary Answer on 18 December last year.

"They will also have a role in assessing performance of local authorities.

The YPLA will check these plans to ensure that they cohere and are affordable and then fund local authorities appropriately. The local authorities will then pass the funding to Colleges".

That is the seventh step.

Whereas to date you are negotiating with the local LSC and it is finding it difficult enough to agree your budget for the coming 12 months, in the future you are not only going to have to negotiate with your local authority, you are going to have to go through the local authority to the YPLA, the YPLA is going to have to go to the sub-regional groups, the sub-regional groups are going to have to go to the regional groups and the regional groups are going to have to cohere with the government offices. They are then going up to the YPLA and will have to be checked at the YPLA, and then it all comes back down to local authorities.

When I was teaching economics, one of the courses I taught was about the Soviet Union and the Soviet economy. It was in the old days of the 1970s and 1980s, and there was an organisation known as Gosplan. One of the problems that the Soviet Union faced in those days was that every decision taken locally had to go all the way up to the top at the Moscow office of Gosplan and then come all the way down again. The process took a very long time. Perhaps one sees this today in some of the consultants who are around in the further education field. There were a lot of fixers, whose job it was to speed the process along and to try to make sure that these things actually worked in the end. We all know that the Soviet Union collapsed partly because of the sheer inefficiency of its economy. It is quite reasonable that colleges should wish to have some way in which, if they are not getting the information that they need out of their local authorities, they can go directly to the YPLA. Amendment 160 says precisely that:

"A further education college may inform the YPLA if it is satisfied that a local education authority is failing, or is likely to fail, to perform its duty under section 15ZA of the Education Act 1996".

That is really saying that it should be able to talk directly to the YPLA rather than necessarily waiting until the local authority comes back.

The Government must recognise how difficult it is for organisations such as further education colleges, which do not have assurances. The Government have given the university sector a three-year forward assurance on its funding. The further education college does not have these assurances. It has to negotiate its funding, because it is being commissioned by a lot of different organisations. The core 16-to-19 function will now come from local authorities, and they will be the key commissioning agents. This will be a huge block of money for the college sector. The rest of the sector, which is demand-led, is totally uncertain. It comes through employers and individuals who decide whether they are going to attend courses at that college. There is gross uncertainty about that, and the college has to make best guesses as to how much it will be attracting people to courses in the following year. Colleges are enjoined to break even, as are all public sector organisations. It is very difficult to break even in those circumstances.

The amendments say, first, that if there is an elected authority, direction should come from the Secretary of State not from the YPLA and, secondly, that the Government should have some sympathy with the college sector and allow it to be able to talk directly to the YPLA if it thinks that the local authority is not fulfilling its function. I beg to move.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

My Lords, before we get into the general debate, it was not just Gosplan that had a system like that. It was the same under the ancien regime in France. De Tocqueville has in almost his first chapter an illustration of how that went wrong, by giving an account of a curé who applied locally for the replacement of a tile on the roof of his chancel. When the answer came back, the roof had fallen in. It would be a great pity if the Government were to attempt that sort of retribution.

Lord Lucas (Conservative)

My Lords, when Hansard comes out tomorrow, I shall cut out the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and pin it on my wall so that I at last have an explanation of how the system is proposed to work. Listening to her, not being a historian, I was reminded of a recipe for cooking capercaillie, where you go through endless stages to remove the overpowering stench of pine needles and to render the incredibly tough flesh delicate. The last step is always to throw it in the dustbin.

Viscount Eccles (Conservative)

My Lords, briefly, I will come back to Amendments 156, 157 and 158. I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said. The YPLA is an entirely inappropriate body to have the power of direction. It is doubly inappropriate because it would be an unelected body giving directions to elected bodies. Since it would not issue a direction unless it had a memorandum from the Secretary of State saying that it was all right to do so, I do not think you should send the boy in to do the man's job. If this amendment were brought to a vote, I would support the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, with great enthusiasm.

Lord Hunt of Wirral (Conservative)

It is rather difficult to follow those four speeches. It has been an interesting journey through the history books and the cookery books. I agree with my noble friend Lord Eccles that in many ways we all agree with the noble Baroness, because she has given the Government a real test. I am slightly bemused, if I can add to the questions, about how the YPLA is going to satisfy itself that a local education authority is failing or is likely to fail. Clause 65 does not give us much indication of the process. I agree with the noble Baroness that, as she has quoted from the chief executive of the Association of Colleges, the whole process seems to be lengthy, complex and difficult, with an over-riding question mark over whether the YPLA is the correct body to be saying whether a local authority is failing.

I wonder whether the Minister could explain how all this is supposed to work. Presumably, he is the author of all this. He may immediately seek to disown it and pass the buck to one of his ministerial colleagues; but presumably Clause 65 is all his idea. He owes it to this House to explain, first, why, but, above all, why the YPLA. I agree with my noble friends Lord Eccles, Lord Lucas and Lord Elton that it does not seem to make sense. He must have thought through how it is all going to operate.

The initial amendments mean that those at the forefront of delivering the services should be able to inform the YPLA if they think that the local education authority is not up to the mark. However, I am particularly concerned about the worries expressed by the Association of Colleges. There is no doubt that colleges should have the right to appeal directly to the YPLA; but again we have the overriding question: why the YPLA?

Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench)

My Lords, I particularly support Amendment 160, although the other amendments reinforce the considerable concern that there is on the matter. The Association of Colleges has informed a number of noble Lords about its concerns, and has done so in a very reasonable and tolerant way, particularly with regard to Amendment 160. It says that some local education authorities will be able to cope with all this, and will not have the problems that we anticipate in a number of other authorities. However, the association's point is that if something goes wrong, there will be a need for a much speedier process. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, pointed out, it will be crucial—especially in these economic times, which will reinforce the problem—that colleges get the funding in time to continue to provide the courses that have been approved. I very much support this. The Association of Colleges has made an excellent case in the detail it has set out, which was delivered to us today and referred to on Monday. It sets out the case beautifully of why the whole thing has become incredibly bureaucratic. Whether or not the whole system is redesigned, we all believe that there is a big challenge to the Government to think through the whole process.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

My Lords, I, too, have enjoyed the journey through history. The YPLA was gaining in powers as the debate went on—a mixture of the Supreme Soviet and the ancien regime. I can reassure the House that the Supreme Soviet disposed of its ancien regime, which solved that problem. Of course we do not want to recreate that monster, or try to reproduce Gosplan, because we know that that would inevitably result in failure.

Amendments 156, 157 and 158 concern the powers of the YPLA to intervene where a local authority is failing in its commissioning duty. I believe that there is agreement on all sides that, while we would expect that in the overwhelming majority of cases local authorities will fulfil their duties effectively, we need a backstop to protect the interests of young people and providers in case any authorities run into difficulties. Sometimes, as we know, local authorities do run into difficulties—a fact that has been mentioned here this evening. It is most appropriate that this power sits with the Young People's Learning Agency. The YPLA will be involved already in supporting local authorities and subregional groups through the commissioning process, and so is closer to where decisions are made than the Secretary of State.

To ensure that local authorities have a clear understanding of the circumstances under which they may be subject to intervention, and that there is appropriate oversight at a ministerial level to ensure that no question of a democratic deficit can arise—I know that that concerns some noble Lords—we have built in a range of safeguards governing the use of the power. The YPLA is required by Clause 71 to produce an interventions statement. There must be consultation on this statement with all appropriate bodies, which will include local authorities. The statement must be approved by the Secretary of State. Furthermore, under Clause 65(4), the YPLA must consult the Secretary of State before exercising its power of intervention under Clause 65. It is not a case of some kind of semi-supreme soviet riding roughshod over local authorities on a whim: there must be an interventions statement and, before the YPLA can exercise that power, it must consult the Secretary of State.

On Amendments 159 and 160, we are committed to ensuring that colleges and providers have a route of appeal against decisions that affect them. Details of the process will be included in the national commissioning framework. We are committed to ensuring a process that addresses all concerns in a timely fashion, and I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that we are working with stakeholders, including the Association of Colleges, to ensure that the administrative processes reflect the requirements of all those involved. We anticipate that, while in the first instance appeals will be dealt with as close as possible to where the decision took place—that is, with local authorities, and with suitable escalation routes set out—the YPLA will be aware of any appeals made. It is not the case that the colleges will have no right of access to the YPLA, which will provide a facilitating role, including proportionate support and challenge where appropriate.

There is understandable concern among some people involved in the commissioning process about the level of complexity. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for reminding us that, despite the dire predictions of doom and open warfare from the noble Lord, Lord Baker, colleges currently negotiate with a number of different authorities. We have no desire to make this more difficult. However, to ensure that there is timely agreement on budgets—something that understandably concerns the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp—we are committed to issuing figures to providers by the end of March. We are committed to setting budgets by 31 March each year. While the timing of the new system is still being consulted on with partners, nothing suggests that the 31 March deadline cannot be met.

While it is true that there are seven stages—I thought that we were going through the Creation as the noble Baroness recounted them—a number of those processes will be conducted in parallel.

I have already addressed the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, about whether colleges can get information from the YPLA if they are not getting it from their local authority. The answer is that they can. Colleges are the source of the data that the YPLA will use to inform the local authority commissioning plans, so they will have access to them.

I hope that I have given sufficient assurances. I cannot confirm the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that I was the author of all of this—I am far too modest to claim that. However, as part of the supporting cast, I support the proposals. We have endeavoured to satisfy the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. I hope that, on the basis of these assurances, she will withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, but, if I may say so, in both cases he misses the point. The key issue expressed in the first four amendments is not that there is any objection to the fact that there may be an intervention process—we recognise that there must be a fallback position and are not objecting to Clause 65 as such. What the amendments are saying is that an elected authority with the power of the electorate behind it is the appropriate one. There are many procedures for consultation with the Secretary of State—you must issue an intervention statement and so forth—so it is right that the Secretary of State, who has the legitimacy of being elected, issues a directive to an elected authority. The YPLA is just an appointed authority—this is the point. The Minister's answer does not address that. It is a minor thing. The YPLA has to go to the Secretary of State and justify issuing a directive. The Secretary of State has to say, "Okay, you can issue a directive", so we might as well have the Secretary of State issuing the directive. It is a matter of constitutional legitimacy, not a question of whether or not there should be intervention.

In relation to the colleges, again it seems that they seek to cut through the bureaucracy. There may be occasions when local authorities miscalculate the figures, do not commission enough provision; or when there is genuine disagreement about funding. Colleges will then have to go through the normal local government complaints procedures if they wish to appeal against decisions. As we know, such procedures can be lengthy and bureaucratic, and it is important that funding is in place for September. The Minister says that the Government are committed to the budget being set by 31 March. The LSC is also committed to that, but the budget is often not in place by 31 July. How can you guarantee, when you have this complicated procedure, that your budget can get set?

This is a mild amendment. Having read Martin Doel's letter I am surprised at how mild it is. All it asks is to enable colleges to talk directly to the YPLA to sort out an issue. I shall go away and contemplate the Minister's totally inadequate answers.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

If the Government are minded to have a right of appeal, why do they object to putting it in the Bill but wish to leave it to the national commissioning framework? The other thing that puzzles me is: in the sequential process described by the noble Baroness of A having to tell B, having to discuss with C, having to tell D and having to discuss with E, how can those stages be carried out in parallel?

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

I regret that the noble Baroness felt that my answer was totally inadequate, but I believe that it addressed the concern. Perhaps it hinges on the question of requiring the YPLA to produce an intervention statement. There has to be consultation with all the appropriate bodies on the statement. I thought that that would be welcome. After all, the noble Baroness complained about the overweening power of the YPLA, and that consultation on the statement should include local authorities. The intervention statement has to be approved by the Secretary of State. We are setting the backdrop, which is important.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, was concerned that I had indicated that somehow the YPLA must consult the Secretary of State before exercising its powers of intervention and that that was merely some perfunctory process. Clearly it is appropriate that the YPLA should make the first assessment on whether intervention is necessary as it is closer to what is going on. But consulting the Secretary of State is certainly not a perfunctory process before it can exercise its powers of intervention. I hoped to convey that it is an important part of the process, not just a matter of, "We are consulting and expect you to agree". We believe that we have involved the Secretary of State in the important decision. The noble Baroness is right to stress the importance of involving elected rather than appointed representatives.

Lord Hunt of Wirral (Conservative)

I am finding it very difficult to understand the Minister's argument. Amendment 156 merely rewrites subsection (2) so that instead of saying that the "YPLA may give directions", it proposes that the Secretary of State, on a recommendation from the YPLA, may give directions. I am not sure why the noble Baroness, the Minister, is objecting to that. The Minister seems to be saying that it is right that an elected official should make the decision, but under the clause it is not the Secretary of State who makes the decision. It states:

"The YPLA may give directions".

If the Minister were to address that point we may make a little more progress.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

Apart from the worrying change of gender that I achieved during that contribution, I never felt a thing. I did something similar to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, last night, so it may be something in the water.

We think that we have the balance right but we want to address the concerns. We will reflect on the point that has been made as I hate being described as totally inadequate. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, raised two points. We believe that the detail of the process is appropriate for the national commissioning framework. In relation to his second point on the stages, I am assured that some of the processes will take place in parallel. Rather than trying to explain the parallel process we shall include it when we write to noble Lords. We have to address the genuine concerns. We do not want a process that is overcomplicated or one in which authorities cannot meet the deadlines, with the impact that that will have on colleges. We have to bottom it out, and when we write to noble Lords, we hope to give some reassurance on the nature of the process which will not reflect Gosplan or even the Ancien Regime. With those assurances, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment.

Viscount Eccles (Conservative)

I shall try to be helpful. I shall speak about directions several times in subsequent amendments. Directions raise constitutional issues; they are not issues of process only. Directions are not subject to any parliamentary procedure, and when given people must comply. There is no room for manoeuvre and directions classically are not the subject of negotiation. If the Bill team, with whom I have had exchanges about directions, were to look at Craies and Bennion for the constitutional position of directions, they will find that they have been used for administrative matters, such as Treasury accounting and other matters of that sort, and as a power of last resort, which the Minister referred to. But it has to be last resort, and not in the middle of a normal set of transactions if we are to stay somewhere near the constitutional precedent.

It would be interesting to have a series of precedents about non-departmental public bodies having the right to give directions with which local authorities must comply, but I am not aware of such precedents, and what is included in the Bill is very unusual if not itself a precedent.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

I am grateful to the Minister for being prepared to take away this first batch of amendments. It is an issue of constitutional legitimacy and not a question of objecting to the procedures. We can ponder on these things. It strikes me that they are mild amendments. On Amendment 160, will the Minister reflect on whether we need some means in which a college can try to short-circuit what have been long-winded procedures of one sort or another?

As I said, we will reflect. The Minister does not need to write to us further about the procedures. We have had masses of paper about how the YPLA will operate and we do not need the Bill team to write us yet another set of letters. We will ponder on it further, because the AOC is legitimately concerned. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 156 withdrawn.

Amendments 157 to 160 not moved.

Clause 65 agreed.

Clauses 66 to 69 agreed.

Amendment 161 not moved.

Clause 70 : Guidance by YPLA

Amendments 161A and 161B not moved.

Clause 70 agreed.

Clauses 71 and 72 agreed.

Clause 73 : Directions by Secretary of State

Debate on whether Clause 73 should stand part of the Bill.

Lord Lucas (Conservative)

My Lords, I want to raise a small question about the interpretation of Clause 73(4). There is a very helpful section in the guidance notes, which state:

"Under subsection (4)directions under this clause may not relate to the funding of activities carried on by particular individuals or bodies. For example, the Secretary of State could not require the YPLA to fund a particular provider to deliver a particular course in respect of a young person".

That is understood, but the subsection itself concludes,

"in respect of a particular person or persons",

so my question is: where does that place the boundary? Clearly, a direction to give more money to Hills Road Sixth Form College would be prohibited, but is a direction to give more money to sixth-form colleges generally prohibited. If that is allowed, is a requirement to give more money to sixth-form colleges in Cambridge allowed? If that is allowed, what about giving more money to sixth-form colleges in Winchester, of which there is only one? Then the Secretary of State could give a direction that goes against the subsection. The logic of the subsection seems to flow ever outwards, so that there is no limit to the prohibition that it places on the Secretary of State in giving directions, unless he directs something that has no implications for any class of providers. It is not only individual providers or individuals who are referred to, he cannot give a direction that relates to a class. For instance, he cannot say that more money should be provided to support the international baccalaureate, because that is, in a way, designating a set of colleges and therefore falls foul of the subsection. It is a technical question: where does the boundary lie? Under the clause, where is the boundary between what the Secretary of State is allowed to do and what he is not?

Lord Elton (Conservative)

I put the question in quite a different light. It concerns not different classes of provision, but different classes of recipient. The question is whether people have to achieve a certain age before they could study a subject. It may be intended to eliminate a particular individual, but it appears to limit any general direction such as that.

Lord Lucas (Conservative)

But, my Lords, I think that paragraph 59 of the notes covers the corporate as well as the individual use of person.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

It could do.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

My Lords, the clause gives the Secretary of State powers to direct the YPLA. He may give the YPLA directions containing objectives at any time when it has either failed to discharge a duty imposed under this or any other Act or has acted or proposes to act unreasonably with respect to the performance of any of its functions. He may give it other directions about its performance. In giving directions, the Secretary of State may set time limits within which they are to be complied. Directions may also relate to the management of the YPLA.

Directions may not relate to the funding of activities carried on by individuals or individual bodies, so the Secretary of State cannot require the YPLA to fund a particular provider to deliver a particular course in respect of a young person. That is to ensure that the YPLA can retain responsibility and accountability for individual funding decisions, without influence from the Secretary of State. The clause is essential to enable the Secretary of State to exercise an appropriate level of control over the YPLA, as one of his agencies—surely an important point—and is a consistent provision across many NDPBs.

To address all the points made: yes, on direction to a type of college, and no to individual colleges. I commend Clause 73.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

What the noble Lord has said agrees exactly with what is in the Explanatory Notes, but it does not seem to agree precisely with what is in the Bill.

Lord Lucas (Conservative)

My Lords, at least we are closer to a starting point. The Minister says that classes of college can be allowed. As I said, if the class of college is sixth-form colleges in Winchester, that is a class of one, so the Secretary of State is thereby giving a direction concerning an individual college, an individual person. That is my difficulty: if we allow the direction to apply to classes, a class can consist of one, so he can get round the prohibition by defining a class of one. If we do not allow classes, an enormous area of discretion is off-limits to the Secretary of State. I do not require an answer now, but I would very much like an answer in writing.

Clause 73 agreed.

Clause 74 agreed.

Clause 75 : Academy arrangements

Amendments 162 to 168 not moved.

Amendment 169

Moved by Lord Young of Norwood Green

169: Clause 75, page 51, line 3, at end insert—

"( ) But Academy functions do not include functions of making, confirming or approving subordinate legislation.

( ) "Subordinate legislation" has the same meaning as in the Interpretation Act 1978 (c. 30) (see section 21(1) of that Act)."

Amendment 169 agreed.

Clause 75, as amended, agreed.

Clauses 76 to 78 agreed.

Clause 79 : The Chief Executive of Skills Funding

Debate on whether Clause 79 should stand part of the Bill.

Lord de Mauley (Conservative)

My Lords, this is one in a series of probing amendments designed to elicit from the Minister the reason why the chief executive of skills funding has been enshrined in legislation, but the Skills Funding Agency as an organisation has not. We simply want to understand the Government's reasoning why, while the Learning and Skills Council was set up as an NDPB, and the YPLA is to be accorded that status, the Skills Funding Agency is not.

The 157 Group, for example, has expressed a desire to see the Skills Funding Agency established as an NDPB. It is worried that it is highly unusual for a funding agency not to have an independent board to oversee the progress and accountability of its work. Its concerns are that the body will be too closely tied to government and that any serious matters will have to be raised straight to the level of a government department. Therefore, instead of being an independent CEO, the chief executive will simply be a cog within, and subordinate to, the machinery of government. Does this not worry the Minister? Furthermore, as insufficient detail is included in the Bill, it would be useful if the Minister could explain what he envisages the structure of the SFA will be, what he considers to be its main functions and how it will carry them out.

We need to probe this area because it was discovered in another place that the Government had indeed considered giving the SFA this status. It would be useful to learn from the Minister the reasons why this approach was rejected. The constitution, legal status and board of the SFA are not included in the Bill. Is the Minister unconcerned that this means that the structure can be altered on the whim of a Minister without any reference to Parliament?

In addition, perhaps the Minister could inform your Lordships of the current practical position of the SFA. Is the senior management team in place? Could he give us details of any shadow running of the SFA, which is currently happening with the YPLA? We are concerned that the closing date for applications to head the SFA has long since passed. Can he confirm that no appointment has yet been announced? If that is correct, can he explain why, especially in view of the fact that there is already a chief executive of the YPLA? It seems that operations are perhaps running rather behind schedule. Does the Minister have any details of the timetable that he can share with your Lordships? Can he at least tell us how many months behind schedule the SFA is running at the moment?

Baroness Hayman (Non-affiliated)

Because this is a clause stand part debate, we have no Motion to move and it is for any noble Lord to speak.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, our names are not attached to these amendments or to the clause stand part, but we have a great deal of sympathy with them. Although the Skills Funding Agency's budget is smaller than that of the YPLA—it is roughly £3.5 billion, whereas the YPLA has a budget of about £7 billion—it is still a very substantial budget. The situation is very odd. For 16 to 19 education, and probably 14 to 19 education, we are setting up the YPLA, which is to be an NDPB, have its own separate board and report directly to Parliament. Higher education is also run by an NDPB—HEFCE—which has a separate board and reports directly to Parliament. The Skills Funding Agency will deal with adult education and will run four separate agencies of substantial importance: the Train to Gain service, the Adult Advancement and Careers Service, the National Apprenticeship Service and the National Employer Service. They are not mentioned in the Bill, which picks up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, that we know remarkably little about the running of the SFA.

In terms of transparency and accountability, I find this a difficult issue. On the one hand, it can be argued that the Minister has to answer directly for the SFA. It is going to be set up as a next-steps agency run by a civil servant with a large number of people under him. It will have more people than the YPLA, which is going to have only 500 allocated to it from the LSC; the SFA will have 1,500 allocated to it. It is a substantial organisation being run by a civil servant, answerable directly to the Minister and with considerable powers, which are detailed in the Bill. It will run the whole of our adult education and training services and the adult apprenticeship service.

How is the SFA going to be made more accountable? We have done away with the Adult Learning Committee that was established under the LSC. One advantage of the SFA having NDPB status is that there would be a board behind the chief executive representing the many areas in the adult skills world. Local government, the sector skills councils, employers and regional initiatives could all be represented. The anomaly is that elsewhere in the education world there are NDPBs with advisory boards that are, to some extent, answerable directly. With the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the LSC, the tradition was that they were set up as NDPBs, but now we suddenly break with that tradition and have this organisation with substantial functions that is only answerable to Parliament through the Minister.

Our party's vision is very different from that of the Conservative Party. On the whole, we feel that with the adult world, and given the blurring of boundaries between higher education and further education, the sensible thing is to expand HEFCE to include all adult education. The name that we have given to it is the council for adult skills and higher education—abbreviated, that becomes CASH, which is perhaps appropriate since we are still advocating that there should be no tuition fees. However, we believe that there is a lot behind these amendments and we have a lot of sympathy with them.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

My Lords, many questions have been raised in today's debate. I have been struck by how much common ground there is between us on the need to reform our post-19 education and training system. There is general recognition that the current system of funding education and training requires refocusing, with employers playing a leading role in identifying what skills are needed locally, regionally and nationally and designing the necessary qualifications, and with funding following individual and employer choice. This requires a more demand-led approach, where funding is allocated to colleges and training providers based on the choices of individuals and employers and on wider local, regional and national skill needs.

The Skills Funding Agency will be one part of a new skills landscape in which the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, sector skills councils, RDAs, the sub-regional economic and skills boards and local authorities will all play their part in determining the skill needs of the nation. In making funding decisions, the chief executive of skills funding will be required to take account of advice from these bodies through guidance issued by the Secretary of State under Clause 115.

Colleges and other providers will also continue to have a central role in informing and shaping the policies that will drive skills forward. At a national level, colleges will continue to be represented on the ministerial standing group and the FE Reform and Performance Programme Board and will directly inform the development of the policies and programmes.

At a regional level, colleges and providers will be consulted by the RDAs on the development of the regional skills strategies, which will be integral to the single integrated regional strategies to be developed by RDAs with local authority leader boards, as proposed in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill.

At a local level, we will expect colleges and providers to engage with learners and employers in their local communities and to explore new and innovative ways to meet their skill needs. The best colleges are already doing this. The system that we are setting up will free colleges and providers from the constraints of rigid funding agreements, enabling them to provide the courses that students and employers want.

The core question in this debate is a narrow one: should the SFA be an NDPB or an agency? Amendment 171, in the name of the Conservative Front Bench, proposes an NDPB. Our overriding aim has been to ensure greater democratic accountability. In the case of the YPLA, NDPB status is appropriate because that body will exist to provide technical support to local authorities in the delivery of their new duties under the Bill. The key commissioning decisions will be made by local authorities, so democratic accountability is maintained.

In the case of the SFA, our preference is for a structure that places a premium on democratic accountability and ensures that Ministers deliver on their responsibilities through the department. Operating as an agency, the Skills Funding Agency will be closer to government, ensuring that it operates within the department's overall strategic framework. This will enable the chief executive to react much more quickly to changing strategic needs and to contribute to the decision-making process through practical experience of what works and why.

If Parliament had agreed to abolish the LSC, we could have established a Skills Funding Agency by purely administrative means using existing powers; we would not have needed Part 4 of the Bill at all. However, we took the view that it was essential to have a robust legislative underpinning for the functions, powers and duties in respect of post-19 education and training, including the responsibility for some £4 billion in funding. These are therefore set out clearly in the Bill, vested in the chief executive of skills funding. We also wanted to put the entitlement to an apprenticeship into legislation.

This approach also enabled us to include a clear statutory requirement for the chief executive to report to Parliament through an annual report—I thought that that would be welcomed—which will set out how the chief executive has performed the functions of the office for the financial year, and for his accounts to be laid before Parliament and subject to certification by the Comptroller and Auditor-General. Select Committees will also be able to require the chief executive of skills funding to give evidence and respond to recommendations made by the committee.

I understand the concerns of colleges and the 157 Group about the status of the new body. There are two main worries. The first is that agency status may somehow lead to the politicisation of funding decisions. However, I think that that is to misunderstand the nature of the day-to-day funding decisions that the SFA will take. In a demand-led system, it will matter less where the money sits, because funding will follow the choices of learners and employers.

It will be the role of the SFA to ensure that this new system operates effectively so that it really does enable individual learners and employers to access courses of their choice and so that the skills needs identified by the UKCES, sector skills councils, RDAs and local authorities are met. It is therefore demand-led. Indeed, such a system is inherently less vulnerable to the sort of political influence about which the colleges have expressed concern. As an additional safeguard, however, we are creating the SFA as an agency and naming in legislation the chief executive on whom the powers and duties rest. We are also making it explicit, through Clause 117(4), that the Secretary of State cannot intervene in individual funding decisions.

The second concern is that the voice of colleges and other providers will somehow be lost. However, as I have already made clear, colleges will continue to have a central and influential role to play in the new arrangements and will have a much freer hand to do so. The changes that we are making will mean that, rather than being lost, their voices will be heard louder and more clearly at an earlier stage of policy development. By making the SFA an agency that is part of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, there will be a clear line between the department and the chief executive of skills funding—an area about which colleges and providers have raised concerns in the past.

The power in Clause 80 for the Secretary of State to direct the chief executive on the performance of apprenticeship functions, which Amendment 172 seeks to remove, is a further measure to enhance the accountability framework. This provision ensures that the chief executive of the National Apprenticeship Service is directly accountable to the Secretary of State. It reflects the central importance that we attach to the apprenticeships programme as part of the Government's response to the economic downturn and their wider post-16 education and training strategy. It will mean that the apprenticeships programme has a directly accountable national head who will be able to give evidence to parliamentary committees.

The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, asked when the chief executive of skills funding would be appointed. The SFA will be established incrementally in shadow form from November and will be fully operational by April 2010.

Another question was whether the structure can be altered without further reference to Parliament. The answer is yes, but the focus is on delivering services, and we do not expect any changes. A framework document will set out for Ministers what is expected of the Skills Funding Agency and how it is accountable.

On the structure of the SFA, it will, as I have said, have a customer focus, offering a set of services that I have described already: the National Apprenticeship Service, the Employer Skills Service, the Learner Support Service, and a college and learner provider service. It will also be overseen by a small executive board.

I apologise for the length of that statement. However, this is a very important issue and I wanted to set out quite clearly why we decided to make the Skills Funding Agency an agency. I therefore hope in the light of those assurances that noble Lords will not oppose the clause.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

I have two further questions. The Minister mentioned just now that the SFA was going to be overseen by a small executive board. One of the issues that I raised was the whole question of the absence of what in the LSC was called the adult learning committee: an absence, in a sense, of those who would advise the chief executive and who come from the community and represent the community—in so far as a small executive board will be on that small executive board.

The other issue that I meant to raise but forgot to in my initial remarks relates to the role that the regions will play in the SFA. In the second paragraph of a letter sent to Jim Brathwaite at SEEDA on 31 July, the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, says very clearly:

"I can confirm that I am considering the case for modifying the existing plans for the creation of the Skills Funding Agency ... to allow the existing skills landscape to be simplified by making the RDAs the single body with responsibility for producing the regional skills strategy and being the champion and advocate for skills at the regional level. Under this scenario, RDAs would be assigned the lead role in identifying, as part of their wider responsibilities for regional economic development, demand-side needs for skills in their regions. Those needs will be expressed in a regional skills strategy, led by the RDA, which will constitute an investment plan which would become binding on the Skills Funding Agency".

That is a somewhat different scenario from that presented in the Bill. It is a very substantial change. Can the Minister tell us something about it?

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

My Lords, my apologies for speaking not to the noble Baroness's amendment but to the clause stand part. I think that there were two points. First, how will the FE sector be engaged in the new engagements? We have indicated that there will be a board. We will also continue to need the expert advice of the sector in informing and shaping the policies which will drive skills forward. That will be strengthened in the new system by ensuring that the source of that advice and the body which will implement it are both close to government.

Colleges will continue to be represented on the ministerial standing group and the further education reform and performance programme board, as well as through other regular meetings with Ministers. Those discussions will directly inform the development of the policies and programmes which will be implemented by the chief executive, who is very much of that department. On the other question that the noble Baroness raised, I must admit that I need to ask her—

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

It was about the letter that the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, sent to Jim Brathwaite at SEEDA, which sets out a very different view of how the SFA will operate from that which comes over in the Bill and the Explanatory Notes.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

I thank the noble Baroness for reminding me. We anticipate that the RDAs will lead in identifying demand-side need for skills in their regions. This will be reflected in their regional skills strategy, which will be part of the single integrated regional strategy developed with—and I stress this—the local authority leader boards.

We envisage that the RDAs will also take responsibility for skills advocacy—including championing and delivering initiatives to raise demand, such as the skills pledge—partnership building, and spearheading multi-agency action in support of employers to identify and resolve mismatches in the supply of skills to meet new employer demand. Responsibility for allocating funds to and managing the relationships with colleges and training providers will rest with the chief executive of skills funding. In doing that, he or she will take into account the national, regional and sub-regional strategies of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the RDAs and the sub-regional and city partnerships.

Lord de Mauley (Conservative)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for her expression of sympathy for our central point in the debate. I think she said that she had not put her name to the clause stand-part Motion, but I am delighted to say that my version of the Marshalled List indicated her support. She helpfully added to what I had said with, among other things, the compelling financial point. The noble Baroness subsequently raised the introduction of the RDAs, and rightly said that this is a substantial change. I think we shall need to come back to it later in these debates.

I thank the Minister for his detailed response to this probing amendment. I am not entirely sure that I am convinced by his answer—I will need to read carefully what he has said—but I shall not press the point this evening.

Clause 79 agreed.

Amendments 169ZB to 169ZD not moved.

Schedule 4 : The Chief Executive of Skills Funding

Amendment 169A not moved.

Amendment 170

Moved by Viscount Eccles

170: Schedule 4, page 175, line 3, leave out "and other management of and administrative"

Viscount Eccles (Conservative)

My Lords, this is another probing amendment which will raise questions for clarification. It is, as the Committee will see, about a paragraph in this schedule that contains directions. First, why is it necessary to include the power to direct,

"other management ... and administrative arrangements",

as the schedule does? The chief executive is a civil servant, as we have heard, reporting to the Secretary of State and not to Parliament. He or she will follow departmental rules with which he or she will be familiar, which will cover administrative and management matters. If by some chance they were not being followed, the Secretary of State would have no trouble finding somebody else in the department to point out that this was how it should be done.

Why, indeed, is a paragraph on directions needed at all? Financial arrangements will need to be in accordance with Treasury rules, and in all other matters the chief executive reports to the Secretary of State, who sets the agenda and can change it at any time. Directions are a draconian power and should not be used where they are not needed. They are not needed in any way in this schedule, which covers the detailed arrangements for an executive agency's chief executive. Indeed, Schedule 4 does not indicate any likelihood that the chief executive will be able to act independently.

The only thing left is whether there is, somewhere within this arrangement, a need for a back-stop power. I, for one, cannot begin to understand why there ever would be a need for such a power to bring the chief executive into line, because if he or she was not in line I suppose that they would be disappointed—somebody else would be put in their place, and we would only hear about it later. If there is any way in which I could be helped to understand why this paragraph is included in the way that it is, it would be if there were an agency precedent on which Parliament might rely. If so, which agency is it? I beg to move.

Lord de Mauley (Conservative)

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Eccles for his characteristically detailed scrutiny of the Bill. It is quite clear, as he said, that the Secretary of State should not have the power to direct the chief executive of skills funding on every aspect of the day-to-day management and administration of his organisation. We have just been probing the status of the SFA; in Committee in another place, the Minister suggested that by putting duties on the statutory post-holder, we would somehow arrive at a greater separation between him and the Secretary of State. This seems rather unlikely under the current terms of Schedule 4, so I am looking forward to the Minister's response to my noble friend.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

My Lords, Amendment 170 would have the effect of reducing the scope of paragraph 10 of Schedule 4, such that the Secretary of State would be able to direct the chief executive of skills funding regarding only the financial arrangements for the office and staff of the chief executive and not the other management and administrative arrangements. This is an important enabling power which allows the Secretary of State to issue directions to the chief executive of skills funding about the financial, management and administrative arrangements of the office of chief executive, should it be necessary to do so.

Guidance will be available to the chief executive to ensure that the arrangements for the Skills Funding Agency in these areas are consistent with current Treasury and Cabinet Office guidelines and with public accountability rules on the financial management and administration of a public body. Issuing such guidance is crucial for the effective and proper handling of the considerable sums of public money which will be routed through the Skills Funding Agency as well as for the efficient and effective management of the organisation as a whole. If the Secretary of State considered that the chief executive or a member of his staff failed to adhere to any such guidance, these powers could be used to direct the chief executive to do so—and, as such, although I do not know if they equate to a back-stop, they are certainly powers of last resort.

This power is not about seeking to control the chief executive. That individual certainly has powers that include reporting to Parliament through an annual report. It is about ensuring, through the power to give directions, that there are high standards of financial probity and administrative arrangements in place.

I turn to a point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, who asked why it is necessary to have powers to direct the chief executive officer, who is a civil servant. It is because the chief executive officer has his own legal personality under the Act and is personally responsible for exercising his own statutory powers. I hope, with that explanation, that the noble Viscount will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Baroness Perry of Southwark (Conservative)

As a former senior civil servant myself, I find this clause to be very unusual. I cannot imagine any occasion on which the chief executive of an agency that is entirely within the Civil Service structure would need directions from a Secretary of State of the kind just described by the Minister. Every senior civil servant knows that they must keep within Treasury rules in terms of finance, so it seems odd to say that the Secretary of State would tell him, because it would be assumed that she or he would do so. As for giving directions, the Secretary of State gives directions to all his or her civil servants because they are there to serve their Ministers. Whether or not they have moved one step away into an agency does not in any sense remove them from the obligation to perform within the rules of the Civil Service, including the Treasury rules, and according to the will and wishes of the Secretary of State.

I find it strange that this has been put into the Bill. I understand the motivation, a noble one, to wish to make the agency as freestanding as possible, but in terms of the Secretary of State directing it on the kind of thing the Minister has described, that is simply unnecessary and, I think, a genuine precedent in legislation.

Viscount Eccles (Conservative)

I will not prolong this short debate except to say that two big clauses, Clauses 116 and 117, deal with directions, so I do not seek to take away the whole panoply of the Secretary of State's ability to give directions to the chief executive. However, I think that we are living in never-never land. An extraordinary piece of advice has come the Minister's way if what he has told us is how the department really works. It is not how the world of the public sector—which I have been in on a number of occasions—has ever worked. I do not believe that it works this way now. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

Perhaps I may—

Viscount Eccles (Conservative)

I have withdrawn the amendment.

Baroness Hayman (Non-affiliated)

I must advise the Committee that I have not yet put the question on withdrawing the amendment, so it is possible for the noble Lord to contribute to the debate.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

In that case, I just want to put into the Minister's mind a disturbing thought. My noble friend said that one could not expect civil servants to do other than what they are told by their Minister, but the advice that he has been given, that a power should go into this Bill to make directions, has come from those civil servants. There may be something afoot in his department that he is not aware of.

Amendment 170 withdrawn.

Amendment 171 had been retabled as Amendment 169ZD.

Schedule 4 agreed.

Clause 80 : Apprenticeship functions

Amendments 172 and 173 not moved.

Clause 80 agreed.

Clause 81 : Apprenticeship training for persons aged 16 to 18 and certain young adults

Amendment 174 not moved.

Amendment 174A had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.

Amendment 175 not moved.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.34 pm.

Committee (7th Day) (Continued)

Lord de Mauley (Conservative)

My Lords, I will be as brief as I can on Amendment 175A, as its intention is pretty clear. The Bill says that the chief executive of skills funding may secure that suitable training should include the provision of facilities that take into account the special needs of the apprentice, if required. This reflects a concern expressed by special educational needs groups that workplaces might not be set up in a way that accommodates a person with learning difficulties or a statement of special educational needs.

To strengthen this, we propose inserting the proviso that the chief executive must have regard to this commitment. We have stopped short of inserting it as a new duty, to take account of the fact that it may not always be possible for employers to provide these suitable facilities. We have no desire to increase the already substantial burden on employers, especially in these very difficult times. However, we feel that it is important for the chief executive to take the provision of appropriate facilities into account when finding a training scheme for these young people, and we look to the Minister for reassurance that this will be the case. Could he perhaps also give us some idea of how the process of securing suitable training with appropriate facilities will be carried out? Will he inform noble Lords what steps the Government will be taking to ensure the suitability of employment? Importantly, how far will employers be expected to fund or adapt to any changes in their workplace initiated by the need to provide appropriate training for these young people? Does the Minister acknowledge the need to ensure a balance between the provision of appropriate apprenticeships for young people with learning difficulties or special educational needs, and the potential burdens on employers to secure them? We would like to hear how this will be managed in a way that is acceptable to all.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, for his ceaseless efforts to make sure that those with learning difficulties or disabilities are fully represented in the Bill. A recent Youth Cohort Study found that 29 per cent of disabled 18 year-olds were not in education, employment or training, compared to 12 per cent of non-disabled 18 year-olds. I do not have the figures for those in the post-19 category. Perhaps the Minister can help us with that.

I hope the Minister will offer the noble Lord, Lord Low, some reassurance regarding his concerns. It is of the utmost importance that those with learning difficulties are included in the entitlements of the Bill. Nevertheless, as I said, I hope that he will also offer some reassurance to employers that in this time of economic difficulty, they will not be overburdened with duties that they may struggle to fulfil. Does the Minister think, for example, that it may be difficult for all small businesses, despite their best intentions, to provide additional learning support for apprentices over 16 in the workplace? How will a balance be achieved between the needs of those in the workplace with learning difficulties and the capacity of employers who may struggle to make all the necessary changes and provisions? I look forward to the Minister's response and beg to move.

Lord Rix (Crossbench)

My Lords, Amendment 189 stands in my name. However, after the productive discussions that my colleagues and I had with the Minister and the department during the Recess, I will not be moving the amendment.

Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench)

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for his praise of my "ceaseless efforts" even before they have begun. I wish to support this group of amendments and will speak in particular to Amendments 213 and 214, which stand in my name. I repeat my interest as president of Skill, the National Bureau for Students with Disabilities. Considerable discussion has taken place with the Bill team over the summer, and officials have gone a considerable way towards clarifying how the needs of learners with learning difficulties and disabilities will be met under the new arrangements. I thank them for that.

It is reassuring to learn that the Skills Funding Agency will be subject to public sector duties under equality legislation—particularly the disability equality duty which, it is intended, will be incorporated ultimately into the public sector equality duty to be introduced by the Equality Bill.

Amendment 213 deals with the availability of information in accessible formats. It is reassuring to know that the National Apprenticeship Service is committed to ensuring that its services are accessible to those with learning difficulties and disabilities; that the service's websites are highly rated for accessibility; and that printed materials produced by the National Apprenticeship Service will comply with the Central Office of Information's informability guidelines. I stress the point because it is becoming increasingly the norm to assume that if you put your information on the internet, you have done all that you need to do to make it accessible. I do not minimise the importance of the internet in making information accessible to those with disabilities, and in equipping them with the skills to use it with facility. However, it has to be recognised that the internet poses peculiar challenges for some people with disabilities—I might mention people with visual impairments—so it remains important to ensure that information is available in other accessible formats.

As for the point that printed materials will comply with the COI's informability guidelines, I would be more comforted by that commitment if anyone could lay hands on those guidelines. I remember them being lodged some 15 to 20 years ago. I hope that they have not disappeared without trace and that they still exist, perhaps in updated form. If not, I am sure that the RNIB, where I am now a vice-president, could help with its See it Right guidelines. We have a comprehensive and substantial pack.

With regard to Access to Work, which is dealt with in Amendment 214, it is understood that this is an issue for implementation to ensure that the National Apprenticeship Service and Access to Work are working effectively together. I am also reassured that organisations representing disabled learners will be involved. It would be even more reassuring if Ministers would commit to keeping an eye on progress.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench)

I support these amendments. The figures that were read out about the number of those with disabilities compared with the rest of the population illustrate how important it is to give special regard to their needs, make certain that all the facilities that they require are available, and above all, that the word "must" enters into the consideration that is given, albeit that it is not a total duty. It is imperative to see that that side of things is carried through.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

First, I thank all those who engaged in a dialogue during the Recess to help us to resolve many of the important issues that have arisen in the debate already.

Clause 81 gives the chief executive of skills funding the power to secure provision of facilities for apprenticeship training for two groups. The first covers people above compulsory school age but under 19, and secondly, those aged 19 or over but under 25 who are subject to a learning difficulty assessment. Amendment 175A would place a duty on the chief executive of skills funding when providing apprenticeship training to have regard to the provision of appropriate apprenticeship training facilities that he would have to ensure are suitable to the needs of the young person being trained. However, Clause 81(2) already sets out the criteria that the chief executive must have regard to when determining whether apprenticeship training is suitable, and that includes learning difficulties.

In our view the duty to provide suitable training would already cover facilities as it could not be delivered without them and, as such, we do not think that Amendment 175A is necessary.

We sympathise with Amendments 213 and 214 and welcome the recognition of the great importance of meeting the very different needs of apprentices, particularly those with learning difficulties and disabilities in accessing written, web-based and other materials. I am pleased to assure noble Lords that materials produced by the National Apprenticeship Service are developed to meet the guidelines set by the Government's Central Office of Information for design and print. They are based on the COI's principle of ensuring that printed and other materials are accessible to as wide an audience as possible, and in particular to disabled people.

I concur with the noble Lord, Lord Low, about the internet. Computers can be a boon to some but they do not solve all the problems, nor do they absolve us of the responsibility of ensuring that other materials, such as printed matter, are also available in the appropriate formats. I reassure him that the COI informability guidelines are still current. They should be available from our office but we will forward the exact location to him.

Clause 112 places a duty on the chief executive of skills funding to have regard to the needs of persons aged 19 to 24 with learning difficulties, other than those with a learning difficulty assessment. Clause 81 requires that when securing the provision of facilities for apprenticeship training for 16 to 18 year-olds and persons aged 19 to 24 with a learning difficulty assessment, the chief executive of skills funding must have regard to any learning difficulties persons may have.

To discharge that duty, and duties under the Disability Discrimination Act, the chief executive must ensure that all apprentices are aware of the support available, including the two schemes specified in the amendment: the Additional Learning Support and Access to Work schemes. We are conscious of the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, about the burden on employers. I recommend that smaller employers consider group training associations, where some of the administrative burdens and facilities may be shared. That is well worth it for smaller and medium-sized employers. Also, employers and disabled employees, including apprentices, can secure support in the workplace through the Access to Work scheme under the DWP. Support through Access to Work is tailored to the needs of individual learners, so avenues of support are there.

Indeed, the Learning and Skills Council has a specific champion to represent the interests of learners with learning difficulties and disabilities in policy-making and to promote their best interests. I fully expect those arrangements to continue under the chief executive of skills funding. Concern has been expressed about how that support can be marshalled to best support apprentices with disabilities. My department has offered to broker a meeting between the Special Educational Consortium, the National Apprenticeship Service and the Department for Work and Pensions to help ensure alignment of the delivery of Additional Learning Support and Access to Work. I have asked for a report on progress by the end of February 2010.

All learning providers and employers have existing duties under the Disability Discrimination Act not to discriminate against people with disabilities and to make reasonable adjustments for them through using either the Additional Learning Support and the Access to Work scheme. The National Apprenticeships Service is working to ensure that apprenticeships are accessible to learners with learning difficulties. I recently went to a scheme in north Hertfordshire, the ALLFIE scheme, and met some of the young people with significant disabilities who are involved in training and apprenticeships.

As the noble Lord, Lord Low, acknowledged, the two main websites meet internationally recognised standards. To be honest, I would expect nothing less as they are recent websites. If we could not get them to meet the standards, we would have been failing. The chief executive of skills funding will be under duties imposed by the DDA, and Amendment 213 would not add anything to those duties. I hope that, in view of these reassurances, and the fact that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that learners with learning difficulties and disabilities can access apprenticeships and training for work, the noble Lord will feel able that to withdraw the amendment.

Lord de Mauley (Conservative)

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, for his contribution. His point about putting information on the internet not in itself being enough is well taken. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for her support. I thank the Minister for his response. I will look again at the clauses that he mentioned and read carefully his words on the impact on employers. For this evening, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 175A withdrawn.

Amendments 176 to 178 not moved.

Clause 81 agreed.

Clause 82 : Arrangements and co-operation with local education authorities

Amendments 179 and 180 not moved.

Clause 82 agreed.

Clause 83 : Encouragement of training provision etc for persons within section 81

Amendments 181 to 185 not moved.

Clause 83 agreed.

Clause 84 : Education and training for persons aged 19 or over and others subject to adult detention

Amendment 186

Moved by Baroness Sharp of Guildford

186: Clause 84, page 55, line 37, leave out "reasonable" and insert "proper"

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment 187. We now move on to education and training for persons aged 19 and over. Clause 84(1) firmly states:

"The Chief Executive must secure the provision of reasonable facilities for ... education suitable to the requirements of ... persons who are aged 19 or over".

The weasel word "reasonable" emerges. It is one that we are fairly familiar with. The definition of what constitutes "reasonable" in this section repeats the legal formula around reasonable used in the Learning and Skills Act 2000, but it differs from the more demanding duty set out in respect of provision leading to certain qualifications.

Clause 85 states:

"The Chief Executive must secure the provision of proper facilities for relevant education",

and the relevant education is listed in Schedule 5, which we will have a look at in the next group of amendments. It relates to education provided free of charge: basic literacy and numeracy, a first full level 2 qualification and a first full level 3 qualification for people aged under 25.

The overall effect of the reasonable/proper distinction, which is not made in the education and training of young people, is that most adult learning is pushed to the end of the queue for resources. Clause 191 uses the formulation,

"so far as is reasonably practicable",

in relation to children's centres for certain of their duties. It does not feel it necessary to use the convoluted wording of "proper" and "reasonable" that we see in this clause. Therefore, in Amendment 186, we have adopted that wording and suggested that in Clause 84 we leave out "reasonable" and insert "proper". Amendment 187 removes subsection (3) and inserts:

"In performing its duties under this section, the Chief Executive must make the best use of its resources and in particular avoid provision that might give rise to disproportionate expenditure".

That seems a reasonable formulation of what we would like to see.

When needs are greater than resources, some form of rationing is inevitable. The question is whether this formulation, based on chronological age, is fit for purpose. A public debate to consider alternative or more graduated approaches based on educational needs is required. One alternative might be to consider a broader range of educational entitlements available to all at different ages in the course of their lives.

There is much talk about demand-led education. The distinction between pre-19 and post-19 education is that post-19 is now to be demand-led. The demand is to come from employers, through programmes such as Train to Gain and apprenticeships, and from individuals. The problem with providing education for individuals is that at the moment the only individuals for whom it is provided are in essence those who have either no qualifications at all or limited qualifications. We shall look at this again when we come to Clause 85, which says that it is provided only to those aged 19 or under who,

"do not have the qualification in question or one ... which appears to the Chief Executive to be at a comparable or higher level".

The Government have had discussions about reintroducing some form of individual learning account. Quite clearly, if we are going to move to a demand-led system for individuals, we have to encourage them to demand education and training in this way, so some sort of encouragement in the form of subsidies of one sort or another might well be necessary.

I do not know how far the Government are moving in the direction of the individual learning account, or some equivalent whereby the individual can perhaps bank credits towards courses, but I bring to their attention the recent publication from the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, Learning Through Life. One of its suggestions is that the Government should bring back some equivalent to the individual learning accounts in the form of entitlements that can be built on through life. The institute suggests that there should be a,

"legal entitlement of free access to learning for all who need it to acquire basic skills".

The Government are providing this.

NIACE also suggests that there should be a,

"financial entitlement to a minimum level of qualification needed to be able to play a full contributing part in society",

and a,

"'good practice' entitlement to learning leave as an occupational benefit to be developed flexibly and over time as part of mainstream employment conditions".

This suggestion—that there should be what some people call a learning bank into which the Government, employers and the individual contribute and which can build up over time and be used to help to fund the individual—is very important.

My amendments highlight the distinction between "reasonable" and "proper". It is hard that adult education is being pushed to the sidelines by this Government and that we have very limited provision. I beg to move.

Lord de Mauley (Conservative)

My Lords, to be brief I will address only our Amendment 188A, which has been tabled in response to a concern expressed by the British Chambers of Commerce that Clause 85(3)(b) restricts the ability of people to reskill at the same level, for example in a new trade, or at one that the chief executive considers to be lower than a qualification that they already have. We would like to probe this area specifically to ask the Government to explain their views about those who wish to reskill at an equivalent or lower level in order to address their very real difficulties in light of the current economic climate.

Will the Minister inform your Lordships of the reasons for this provision in the Bill? Was it just a matter of funding? If so, will he say what it would cost to extend the provision and explain how his figures are calculated? I imagine that these calculations have been done. We understand that funding considerations are an important factor, but perhaps he can reassure businesses that are concerned that an important part of a skills policy agenda should be to place an emphasis on reskilling and not just on upskilling. What action are the Government taking in this regard?

Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench)

My Lords, I very much support these amendments, particularly Amendment 186, which has been well explained, and Amendment 187, which, if anything, is a little tame. I would rather go along with the approach taken by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp: we should be looking at an entitlement to appropriate education during a lifetime. There are late developers and people who have been out of education for all sorts of reasons. They would, incidentally, cost us huge sums of money if we did not take advantage of a sudden change of heart; they could end up in prison and we know the cost of that. I hope, then, that we will not see for much longer adult education pushed to the sidelines, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, has said. It does not make sense and to me it all brings back how much we all miss Lord Dearing, who was very much on these lines. I willingly support the amendments.

Viscount Eccles (Conservative)

My Lords, I have a probing amendment in this group on Clause 87 that may go some way to adding to the questions, or possibly to producing part of the answer. Clause 87(1) says that regulations may make provision that,

"despite having a specified qualification, a person is to be treated ... as not having that qualification".

In paragraph (b), it is the other way round; it says that,

"despite not having a specified qualification, a person is to be treated ... as having that qualification".

I suppose that these provisions have been included to introduce the sort of flexibility that was just referred to and I am sure that we have all found that many people do not fit into any chosen bureaucratic model.

Flexibility to grant exceptions to rigid qualification rules is undoubtedly welcome. A rapidly changing and complex world demands flexibility, but is this clause not a clumsy way of going about it? Subsection (1), in effect, allows black to be ruled as white and white to be ruled as black, thus presumably allowing some study or employment for which the person was not originally qualified. The problem created by the clause, however, is large. I do not see how it can cope with individuals needing sensible dispensations from the rules. I suspect that regulations, if we need them, will not deal with individuals. Also, in all practicality it will not be possible to have regulations very often, so that when they appear they will need to cover classes of person, thus reducing flexibility and bringing in infrequent changes to what is otherwise a convoy system.

Finally, if I have read the schedule correctly, this clause seems to have something to do with level 3—and, I therefore suppose, some release to start again on a way forward to level 3. Really, this clause will not do what is intended. Arrangements to achieve flexibility need to be much more clearly stated in the Bill, as people will need that flexibility; in this clause, however, it is discretionary and in the gift of Ministers. The Government need to amend this clause so that it can do what I believe is intended.

Lord Lucas (Conservative)

My Lords, I thoroughly agree with my noble friend's last speech. It seems to me that the noble Lords on the Benches opposite ought to have sympathy for those many of their colleagues in another place who might find themselves needing to reskill at some stage next year, just as I had to reskill some 12 years ago. It seems to me that, as my noble friend says, individual flexibility is needed—that is, the ability to look at individual cases and say, "Yes, it is reasonable even for someone who has got to degree level to go back and get a vocational qualification in something for which there is actually a demand". This is particularly important for people in the last 20 years or so of their working lives where the original career in which they set out may no longer have room for them. They will have been displaced by younger, more recently trained people. However, there may be many occupations where their accumulated wisdom is appreciated, but at a substantially lower level than the qualifications that they have reached. It is important that we have a system that offers individual flexibility. I also have great sympathy for the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord De Mauley, which is very much on the same grounds.

I do not have much time for the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. The problem is that this clause conflates the general run of adults aged over 19 with those who are in prison. If we go down the route proposed by the noble Baroness, we would end up with the DCSF paying half the rebuilding costs of the prisons in England because there is no way, with the kit that we have on the ground at the moment, that reasonable educational facilities can be provided, let alone proper ones. There have to be considerable let-outs in this clause to allow for the current condition of the prison estate. In this context I should declare that I am married to someone who runs a charity that works in prison education, so that gives me a particular interest in this clause.

I have two questions. First, what is the implication of the word "and" at the end of line 40 on page 55? It suggests that the two sub-paragraphs should be taken together so that the education that the chief executive is allowed to provide must be suitable for both groups. If that is the case, a pretty restricted range of education will be allowed. I would have thought that the proper word to use here is "or" so that the provision is for education that is suitable for either of the two groups. No doubt the noble Lord will inform me about this.

I do not require a response to my other question now if none is available, but will await some later thoughts. One of the problems with the old arrangements has been the focus of the Learning and Skills Council on education and qualifications that lead directly to employment. That is quite appropriate in its work outside prisons but within them there is a concentration of learners who have not even reached level zero. They have rejected education. They are illiterate, innumerate and do not want to be anything else. A suite of programmes designed specifically for prisoners is needed to get them on the ladder. It has been a long and difficult fight to persuade the Learning and Skills Council that such programmes are required. I think that the council had at last begun to accept it when it was told that it was about to be abolished. I would like to be sure that the new body picks up where the council got to rather than starts again at the position that the council was in when it was founded.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

My Lords, this Government have made a record level of investment in education and training, but public finances are finite. I reject the idea that these are weasel words. They are candid and recognise that financial resources are not infinitely available, so we must focus resources on those who will benefit the most. I must admit when I heard that adult learning was being pushed to the back of the queue, I asked for the figures on adult education. Something like £4 billion is being spent on it, including £1 billion on the Train to Gain scheme and nearly £1 billion on apprenticeships. It does not seem to me that the Government do not understand the importance of training and skills. We are aware that we might not have met every single demand, but we have made enormous progress.

Amendments 186 and 187 would remove the ability of the chief executive to exercise judgment about what training can be provided, taking account of the available resources, while Amendment 188A would give all those adults learners who already possess a certain level of qualification the same funding priority as those who have the fewest skills. There is the rub—where do we concentrate our resources? We believe that we should in the first instance ensure that the people who need it are getting a first qualification.

We cannot fund all requests for learning from all adults. I say in response to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, that taking current demand from adults for vocational level 2 courses as a guide, we would face increased costs of some £727 million over the next two years. It is not that we are not sympathetic; it is question of where we focus resources.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, spoke about the concept of lifelong learning and the individual learning account. I absolutely agree with her: we are supportive of that concept. In today's climate, there should be no situation where people somehow abandon learning. We know that it is good for people, whatever age they are at. We are therefore in the process of introducing a new skills account, learning lessons—as I think we need to—from the individual learning accounts, where we know we had certain problems. Trials of the skills accounts will be available in all areas from early 2010. I hope that that will be seen as good news.

We must set clear priorities for funding. The Bill gives higher funding priority to those adults who lack the basic platform of skills needed for employability and progression, and to live successful lives. This does not mean that other qualifications cannot be supported—far from it. Funding will continue to be safeguarded for informal learning and will be joined up with other public, private and voluntary sector activity.

The chief executive can also fund courses for individuals to take second qualifications at level 2 and higher, but it would not be right to create entitlements to this, as it would put unnecessary pressure on the chief executive's budget and potentially force down the quality of provision, as funding would be spread too thinly.

At the same time, we recognise that there will be some individuals who already have qualifications but who have lost their literacy or numeracy skills over time and need help to improve their basic skills in these areas. We intend to use the regulation-making power in Clause 87(1) to allow such individuals to do a second qualification in specified circumstances, because we recognise the importance of literacy and numeracy skills in providing the platform for people getting back into employment.

Amendment 197 would remove this regulation-making power. I hope that the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, will agree about the unique importance of literacy and numeracy skills in enabling all individuals to function daily in work and to support their families. I stress that, other than for those particular exceptions, first qualifications should remain the focus of the duties of the chief executive.

The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, felt that Clause 87 was poorly drafted. I say to him that Clauses 85 to 87 re-enact, and are lifted straight from, the Education and Skills Act 2008, so have already been approved by Parliament.

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, asked about prisoners' special needs. I concur with his view that, since we have at long last made progress with the LSC, we should not have to go through that process again. We will endeavour to ensure that that work is carried forward. We have had a number of debates here about young offenders and I agree with the noble Lord that the provisions do not apply just to them. I hope in the light of those assurances that the amendments can be withdrawn.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. I have to admit that, in laying Amendments 186 and 187, I had not fully taken in the fact that the provision was restricted to those who were in detention. I fully take on board the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I was trying to argue—and the Minister took it in that sense—that, in terms of adult education, the term "proper facilities" should be appropriate. In those circumstances, it is probably an inappropriate amendment to have laid and I beg leave to withdraw it.

Amendment 186 withdrawn.

Amendments 187 and 188 not moved.

Clause 84 agreed.

Clause 85 : Learning aims for persons aged 19 or over: provision of facilities

Amendments 188A and 189 not moved.

Clause 85 agreed

Schedule 5 : Learning aims for persons aged 19 or over

Amendment 190

Moved by Baroness Sharp of Guildford

190: Schedule 5, page 175, line 18, at end insert—

"( ) an apprenticeship training"

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I laid this amendment on behalf of the roofing contractors and the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils. There is considerable concern at the fact that, these days, many adults come forward wanting apprenticeships. Many businesses are anxious to provide such apprenticeships but they find it difficult to do so because so little finance is available. My three amendments seek to add adult apprenticeship training to those listed in paragraph 1 of Schedule 5, which relates to Clause 85. It defines post-19 training with the SFA. We have already discussed the distinction between the words "reasonable" and "proper", and proper facilities should be provided for those listed in Schedule 5, which amounts to those looking for basic adult literacy and numeracy training, those who do not have a level 2 qualification and those up to the age of 25 if they have no level 3 qualification.

It is a very sad fact that the number of young people signing up for apprenticeships has fallen over the past two years. Only 3.8 per cent of 16 year-olds are signing up for a level 2 or level 3 apprenticeship and only 6.3 per cent of 17 year-olds are signing up for level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships. There is a dearth of places for apprenticeships offered by employers. Yet employers are anxious to take on adult apprentices at a time when many people are trying to reskill, which picks up the points made by the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, on the previous batch of amendments. At a time when many people are trying, and wanting, to reskill, it seems inappropriate to put barriers in their way. I beg to move.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

My Lords, taken together, Amendments 190, 191 and 192 would mean that all training costs for adult apprenticeships at level 2, where this is the first level 2 qualification, and for those aged from 19 up to 25 at level 3, are met from the public purse, and would preclude employers contributing towards these costs.

Apprenticeships offer an excellent route for adults aiming to improve their skills and employability. That is why we lifted the age restriction in 2007 to allow people aged 25 and over to access and benefit from apprenticeships, which was a first. This change enabled 27,200 people aged 25 and over to start an apprenticeship in 2007-08, which was up from 300 in the previous year. We are delighted that that trend has continued. As has been said, it has enabled a number of people to reskill.

But there is a balance to be struck. We are trying to ensure that as many apprenticeships as possible are created for 16 to 18 year-olds, and I make no apology for that. It is vital that we get as many young people of that age range as we can on to a career path that we know will have a profound impact on their lives. I have described every one of those apprenticeships as a small beacon of hope for young people.

Again, with our finite resources, we have recognised that investing in skills is a shared responsibility and we should not signal to employers that they should not be making an investment in skills. From all the feedback we receive we know that investment in training is positive; we know that firms that do not invest in training during a recession are 2.5 times more likely to fail; and we know that an investment in an apprenticeship is worth while in terms of retention and the contribution that people make to the company that they are employed in.

As compared to the 16 to 18 year-olds, it is interesting that adult apprentices who have experience of the workplace typically complete their apprenticeships much faster than young people, in some cases at half the rate. Adult apprentices make a much more immediate contribution; that is why our policy requires that employers should contribute to the training costs of apprentices aged 19 and over. Currently employers make a contribution of around 40 per cent of the training costs for adult apprentices, increasing to 50 per cent in 2010-11. It is a reasonable proposition to make to an employer to take on an adult apprentice or to convert one of their existing employees to an apprenticeship, which happens in many cases, and we will meet 50 per cent of the training costs. That is a real bargain.

We intend to use the regulation-making powers in Clauses 85 and 86 to reinforce this position by excluding persons who are studying for a level 2 or 3 qualification as part of an apprenticeship from these provisions and to ensure that we can continue to require employers to contribute. It is a fair and reasonable contribution and there is still a positive encouragement and inducement for employers. The figures speak for themselves. Even under the current funding arrangements there has been a significant increase in adult apprenticeships.

Perhaps I may point out a slight correction to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, who I know is a stickler for accuracy. There has been a slight decline in the number of 16 to 18 apprenticeships, but not for two years; it is only in the past year. But if we look at what has happened to apprenticeships overall, I regard it, as I said, as a renaissance, from a situation in 1997 where the apprenticeship scheme was practically dead on its feet, with something like only 65,000, to the current situation where we have more than a quarter of a million, with over two-thirds completing. With that explanation and assurances, I hope the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford (Liberal Democrat)

I thank the Minister for that reply. There is an anomaly in that at the moment we have a large number of young adults over 19 who are anxious to move into apprenticeships but find that the financial barrier stops them from doing so. We need to remove that barrier for some of those young people and perhaps Amendment 196, which is to be moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, will find a half-way house on this. Both employers and young adults want to go forward in this way but we do not seem able to find a way for them. I shall withdraw the amendment, but I will think again about this issue and we may possibly return to it on Report.

Amendment 190 withdrawn.

Amendments 191 and 192 not moved.

Amendments 193 and 194 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.

Amendment 195 had been retabled as Amendment 215A.

Schedule 5 agreed.

Clause 86 : Learning aims for persons aged 19 or over: payment of tuition fees

Amendment 196

Moved by Baroness Perry of Southwark

196: Clause 86, page 58, line 12, leave out "25" and insert "30"

Baroness Perry of Southwark (Conservative)

My Lords, Clause 86 refers back to the provisions in Schedule 5. I want to move the debate on from the issue of adult apprenticeships to the specific area of paragraph 1(2) of the Schedule, which provides for the very basic qualifications: basic literacy, basic numeracy, level 2 qualifications and A-levels. These are the fundamentals. As the Minister has just said, these are the gateway to employment and a decent adult life. We know from the statistics that, sadly, a lot of our adult population is not literate, and an even larger proportion is not numerate.

I know well the arguments against any kind of commitment to increased expenditure, but it is not necessarily increased expenditure to provide free basic education in literacy and numeracy. I would have liked to have put down an amendment saying the limit should be 99 rather than 30, because I would like to think that any adult who was not literate or numerate could be provided with free education in that area. There is a long and proud tradition in adult education of providing free literacy and numeracy training for all adults of any age. Many local authorities have provided it for free for many years through their adult education services, and it is a great sadness to me that in recent years that has ceased and people have had to pay for it.

This is a modest amendment, saying simply that it would be a very slight increase in public expenditure because the courses are already being offered to the under-25s, so to add in another couple of adults who are over 25 would not cost a penny more. It would be an important contribution to the employability of a lot of the population. I beg to move.

Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, from these Benches we support this amendment. The whole purpose of the education is to provide people with second chances, and funding only up to the age of 25 seems to be a curious limitation on this. Thirty would be a slightly more generous age to have in the Bill, while still affordable.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench)

My Lords, I also support the amendment. It is a step in the right direction. I would rather that there was a lifetime opportunity, but I will certainly support this slight move towards lifetime.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

My Lords, I am a bit more ambitious. The illiterate are debarred from almost every form of progress. Literacy is a key that opens so many doors, and if it can be opened later in life, it should be. I do not see why, for what must amount to pence compared with the national budget, we should limit this to 30. I would put it to 45.

Lord de Mauley (Conservative)

My Lords, while I agreed with the Minister when he said on the previous group that resources are finite and that a balance has to be struck, his words would have somewhat more force if, when speaking on an earlier group today, he had not boasted of how much money the Government had spent on a particular issue, as if the amount were the only measure of success. The Government still have not got the message that it is not just about how much they have spent but about how effective that spending is.

On the matter of the age range in my noble friend's amendment, how was it decided that the age restriction would be between 19 and 25? What were the reasons behind that?

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

While I sympathise with Amendment 196—that is always the prelude to disappointment, is it not?—I believe that it is right to focus resources where they can have the greatest economic impact. Waiving fees for those aged 19 up to 25 gives a second chance to those individuals who, for whatever reason, did not succeed at school. This second chance will enable them to gain their level 3 qualification and progress on into higher education or careers. Learners in this group are more likely to study full-time and less likely to have an independent source of income. Information on average wages suggests that adults under 25 without a level 3 qualification are in greater need of help with the cost of learning than those over 25. That was one of the criteria.

When deciding which fees to waive, we must prioritise; level 3 courses in particular are expensive to provide. I cannot help pausing in this debate to think that the ghost of Lord Dearing should be haunting us. We all acknowledged his commitment and passion, and this was one of his objectives. To extend the duty to include adults aged between 25 and 30 would require an additional £70 million over the next two years.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, on this age range, I think that we would be damned if we did and damned if we did not. Of course, spending money is no guarantee of success but, if we wanted to improve the skill base, we knew that we had to make a huge investment. There have been some 2.8 million adult achievements in basic skills since 2001, and more than 5.7 million have engaged in skills for life since then. I am advised by my officials that, unless I have misunderstood what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, was saying, with literacy and numeracy qualifications there is no age barrier. Free literacy and numeracy courses will continue; that is the purpose of Clauses 85 to 87. That is backed by £1 billion of funding in the next year.

Baroness Perry of Southwark (Conservative)

What the Minister has just said is very worrying, if it is the case that this Bill for the first time restricts free literacy and numeracy courses to those over 25. The duty on the chief executive to provide free education in literacy and numeracy level 2 and A-levels is restricted to people between the ages of 19 and 25. If that is actually a first restriction, it is very serious and concerning.

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

Unless my officials have misadvised me, I am being told that there is no restriction or age barrier on literacy and numeracy skills. I am looking towards the Box to confirm that, but nobody is paying any attention. I am told that it is up to level 3 on literacy and numeracy; that is the confirmation that I have had. So there is no age restriction on basic literacy and numeracy skills up to level 3.

Baroness Perry of Southwark (Conservative)

Perhaps the Minister could be kind enough to explain the disparity. The schedule refers to,

"a specified qualification in literacy ... a specified qualification in numeracy ... a specified vocational qualification at level 2 ... a specified qualification at level 3".

Clause 86(4) says that the chief executive has a duty to provide this for free only to people,

"aged at least 19 but less than 25".

Lord Young of Norwood Green (Labour)

I am advised that there is no age restriction on literacy and numeracy skills. The 19 to 25 age restriction applies to level 3 only. I will confirm that in writing because I do not want there to be any dubiety or ambiguity on this matter. I share the noble Baroness's view that this is an important issue. With those assurances, I hope that the noble Baroness can agree to withdraw her amendment.

Baroness Perry of Southwark (Conservative)

I am extremely grateful to the Minister and to noble Lords, including my own Front Bench, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for their support. I hope very much that I am wrong and that the Minister's officials are right and that this is not a necessary amendment. In that case, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 196 withdrawn.

Clause 86 agreed.

Clause 87 : Sections 85 and 86: supplementary

Amendment 197 not moved.

Debate on whether Clause 87 should stand part of the Bill.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

My Lords, my noble friend rightly asked about the difficulty of providing to national standards. The noble Baroness will answer, so I am looking at the wrong person. My noble friend made the point that you cannot provide to people in prison the same level as to people in other places. I assume that that is the reason for Clause 87(5), which excludes Sections 85 and 86 from applying to people in prison. To abandon all aspirations like that is a pity. I hope that, at the next stage, there may be something in this clause to show that there must be a standard provided, even if it is not the same standard as for people in other accommodation.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Labour)

My Lords, I have in my hand a piece of paper which appears to be an explanation about Clause 87, but I may be about to disappoint the noble Lord because the briefing I have here does not answer his question. The advice I have is that Clause 87 is about making regulations that will allow for circumstances where somebody has gained certain levels of qualifications but lost the skills. Therefore, I am not able to answer his question properly. If the noble Lord will indulge me, I will have to write to him.

Lord Elton (Conservative)

It was not a question: it was a request that at the next stage the Government would consider adding something to modify the effect of subsection (5) of this clause, which is totally to exclude aspirational targets for prisoners.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Labour)

I appreciate the noble Lord's point. When I read the clause it seemed to mean several different things at once and I have had to read it several times. I would be grateful if I could have the opportunity to clarify it for the noble Lord in the terms that he requested.

Clause 87 agreed.

House resumed.