The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
I wish to inform the House that, following my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs’ oral statement launching the review of the balance of competences in July 2012, Official Report, column 468, and, most recently, written ministerial statement on the progress of the review on 13 February 2014, Official Report, column 76WS, the Department for Education is publishing its call for evidence on education, vocational training and youth.
The review of education, vocational training and youth is being jointly led by the Department for Education (DfE), Cabinet Office (CO) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).
The call for evidence period will last 12 weeks, from 27 March 2014 to 30 June 2014, and officials will draw together the evidence and policy analysis into draft reports, which will go through a process of scrutiny which is due to take place by the end of 2014.
As with previous semesters, this report will consult widely. The Departments will pursue an active engagement process, including Parliament and its committees, the devolved Administrations, and civil society in order to obtain evidence to contribute to our analysis of competences. Our EU partners and the EU institutions will also be invited to contribute evidence to the review. As the reviews are to be objective and evidence-based, we are encouraging a wide range of interested parties and individuals to contribute.
DfE, CO and BIS will take a rigorous approach to the collection and analysis of evidence. The call for evidence document sets out the scope of the report and includes a series of broad questions on which contributors are asked to focus. The evidence received—subject to the provision of the Data Protection Act—will be published alongside the final report, which is due to be published by the end of 2014, and will be available on the Government website www.gov.uk
The result of the consultation will be a comprehensive, thorough and detailed analysis-based report. It will aid our understanding of the nature of our EU membership and it will provide a constructive and serious contribution to the wider European debate about modernising and improving the EU. The reports will not produce specific policy recommendations.
The calls for evidence documents will be published and available on the Government website: https://www. gov.uk/review-of-the-balance-of-competences