Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Hampton

Report stage
Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 10, to which I have added my name. With due respect to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, the whole point of being a Cross-Bencher is that you do not have to cut any Government any slack.

The thing I really like about Amendment 10, to take up the point from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, is that while I find the language in the framework document very iffy at times, Amendment 10 has

“ensure that education and training is of an appropriate quality … represents good value … ensure that Skills England performs its functions efficiently and effectively”.

I really like that.

We talk about annual reports. The Government have already committed to putting out a report after six months. I really like annual reports.

The Minister talked about Skills England already having experience in shadow form. Perhaps she could comment a little more about that as well.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 7 in the name of the Minister, Amendment 8 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Aberdare, and my Amendment 10. It feels a bit churlish not to welcome a report on how Skills England is discharging its functions, and it is even more troubling to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, since I have obviously made it a policy always to agree with him. However, I genuinely think that this amendment is rather odd.

The first thing is the timescale. The amendment says that the report

“must be laid and published within six months of the abolition of”

IfATE, which means the department will need to start writing it within a few weeks of the Bill passing, since I imagine that the sign-off process is similar to the example the noble Lord, Lord Storey, read out, in terms of complaints. What will it be able to say at that point about the exercise of its functions—that it has just got started? What impact will a few weeks of work have on apprenticeships and technical education in England, particularly given how many other moving parts there are in the system, with the proposed introduction of the growth and skills levy? I genuinely worry that, with the best will in the world, the report risks being rather thin and without any real substance, and that it will not be the kind of state of the nation report the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, suggests is appropriate.

In contrast, Amendment 8 sets a more realistic timescale. It is much more tailored to the specific points the Minister has heard repeatedly across the House, which relate to skills and technical education policy and strategy. I guess that it is a backdoor way of trying to get a bit more policy into the Bill. The serious point, which so many of our debates have centred on, is that the Bill is not clear on the Government’s specific policy approach. I urge the Minister to consider Amendment 8 as a helpful way of starting to sketch this out and perhaps to commit in her closing remarks to including at least parts of it in the next draft of the framework document.

I draw attention to two particular points in the document—which I am so glad that I read, otherwise I would have been found out by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. At 26.2, where the document refers to the annual report and accounts, it says that it will include the main activities and performance during the previous financial year. The Minister has obviously memorised it—we could have “Mastermind” on this. At 26.3, the document says there will information on the financial performance of Skills England. So, some of the points in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, could be used to flesh out those statements.

I am very grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Hampton, for their support for my Amendment 10. We have already debated the point of principle that the framework principles for the new executive agency should be in the Bill, and my amendment does this in a way I had hoped would not be controversial for the Government—although I am not terribly encouraged by the Minister’s opening remarks. I would be very grateful if, when she winds up, she could be absolutely clear on whether the public law duties which she says cover all the points in my earlier amendments and this amendment apply to IfATE. If they did apply to IfATE, why was that original drafting chosen and why was it part of the legislation passed by both Houses?

Like Amendments 2 and 5, this amendment takes the text from the original legislation, puts it in the Bill and applies it to Skills England. It is clear that Skills England will need to have regard to the quality of education and training, and the Minister said that that was in the aims. She can put me right if I have missed it, but I have to say that I cannot see it anywhere in the aims, so maybe she could commit to including that. It is also clear that it must represent good value in relation to funding and be efficient and effective, and it needs to prepare an annual report and lay it before Parliament. Paragraph (c) makes it clear that the Secretary of State can write to Skills England setting out

“other matters to which it must have regard when performing its functions”.

It gives the Secretary of State the flexibility for the focus of Skills England to evolve over time, which I am sure it will, naturally and rightly. The aim of this is not a straitjacket for government; it is just trying to get a balance between transparency, focus and flexibility.

I laid my amendment before the Minister shared the draft framework document and her letter, and I have a couple of concerns arising from those. Of course, if these principles are not in the Bill, Ministers can change at will the focus of the agency. I know that is not the Minister’s nor the Secretary of State’s intent—or I assume it is not—but the Minister’s letter to your Lordships says that there will be a review in the 18 to 24 months from inception, and a very wide range of options will be looked at, which seem to run from creating a different body to putting Skills England on a statutory footing. I know that this is not the Minister’s intention today, but it is what the letter says, and it underlines the point that a number of noble Lords have tried to make on more than one occasion.

Secondly, as I have said already, there is a lot of detail on page 7 of the document—it is page 7 of my printed version, although the printer of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, obviously uses different page numbers. It is the section on aims. It is not explicit in the same way about the importance of quality, it does not talk directly about the need for education and training to represent good value, and it does not talk about efficiency and effectiveness. I appreciate that there are generic references—boilerplate text—in the document, but it would be helpful if the Minister committed to amending this to reflect those three principles, which she confirmed in her opening remarks she definitely accepts.

The list on page 7 risks highlighting some of the issues we have debated at length, with specific government policies included in it, such as the Government’s mission to become a clean energy superpower. Of course, those priorities could change, and it would be entirely appropriate to put them in an annual letter from the Secretary of State to the agency. I am just surprised they are in the framework document. Perhaps I am being overly picky, and the Minister can correct me if I am, but it feels odd for an independent agency to use the term “superpower”—it does not feel quite right.

I very much hope that when she sums up, the Minister will be able to say how much of the text and the spirit of my amendment she will be able to put into the next draft of the framework document. It is more workable and much clearer than the current text in the section covering purposes and aims, and it is obviously more rigorous to have those principles in the Bill, but if the Minister commits to using that text in the framework document itself, I absolutely trust her. It is a workable, albeit less satisfactory option. If she cannot do that, when we come to call this amendment, I will test the opinion of the House.