Technical and Further Education Bill

Baroness Buscombe Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall make one additional point in support of the amendment. I was one of the founding members of the Low Pay Commission. When it was first established, its job was to create the infrastructure around not just the minimum wage but the wage for apprentices and how that would play out in the world of employment. It was 19 years ago that we first grappled with these issues, so the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, is quite right that this has been a problem for quite some time. It is a structural issue.

I know that the Minister is very good at leaping over barriers to try to solve problems. I know it is not easy, but he can see the broader pictures and can try to bang heads together on an issue which will not go away unless something positive is done.

I fully endorse what my noble friend Lord Blunkett said. The Low Pay Commission had to agree to a very low wage not only to get a unanimous report but because we were pioneering and wanted to be absolutely sure that we were not going to damage the economy. When we look at that low wage, as it still is, and the transport implications, to be honest it is a miracle that anybody whose family receives benefits goes in for an apprenticeship at all. Far from being the group that needs the least motivation—we are trying to tackle the fact that the education system is failing that group at the moment—these people require the most motivation to keep going.

This is a plea for the Minister to do his Superman act—he is about to take his jacket off, so I am feeling much more optimistic—and try to find ways of breaking down barriers and breaking through this structural anomaly, which we all want to do.

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint, but Superman is not responding to this amendment, and I am certainly no Superwoman.

We welcome the sentiment behind Amendment 12A tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, that young people should not feel financially disadvantaged by taking up an apprenticeship. However, I hope I will be able to persuade noble Lords who have taken part in this debate that sufficient safeguards are in place to support this aim. In saying that, the amendment focuses on child benefit rather than the broader issue of all other benefits, which are not part of this Bill. Therefore, it is very difficult to widen my response in that regard, but let us see what we can do.

One of the core principles of an apprenticeship is that it is a genuine job and is treated accordingly in the benefits system. A young person on an apprenticeship will receive at least the national minimum wage, which is now £3.40 per hour for apprentices following a 3% increase in October 2016. Of course, these figures do not remain static—indeed, I am moving a Motion on an SI tomorrow on upgrading the figures—and most employers pay more than the minimum. The 2016 apprenticeship pay survey estimates that the average gross hourly pay received by apprentices in England was £6.70 per hour for level 2 and 3 apprentices.

The purpose of child benefit is to support parents financially with the extra costs of raising a child—for example, with the cost of food, clothing and other necessities. If a young person is undertaking an apprenticeship, or is in training or education by virtue of a contract of employment, their parents are no longer eligible for child benefit for supporting that young person. However, parents can still receive child benefit for other children and qualifying young persons in their family.

An apprentice has to work only 6.1 hours—less than one full day’s work—on the minimum wage to earn the equivalent of the weekly child benefit amount for the eldest or only child, or four hours to earn the equivalent of the second and subsequent children’s amount. In that sense, there is more than a catch-up there. So I hope I have provided sufficient reassurance that the wages from an apprenticeship, even if paid at the apprenticeship minimum wage, will more than offset any household income reductions through the loss of child benefit.

Noble Lords talked also about the loss or reduction in housing benefit, credits and so on. As I said at the beginning, that is not within the scope of this Bill. Noble Lords have said they would like an opportunity to talk to my noble friend the Minister about this issue before Report. My noble friend is very happy to meet, but it is not within our gift to make a difference on this. The point has certainly been well put by noble Lords, but within the confines of this Bill it is very difficult to look beyond what we are already able to do for apprentices.

I hope that, on that basis, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I was going to ask the Minister to address that point. If the apprenticeship is approved by the Institute for Apprenticeships, is it an approved form of learning? The apprentices are in training for the most part. They are released at least one day a week. I would welcome some guidance on that.

[Baroness Buscombe]

The difficulty is that the institute cannot change the definition of an apprenticeship. However, my noble friend will meet with noble Lords who would like to discuss this issue further following Committee.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

If the institute cannot change the definition of an apprenticeship, who can?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, the difficulty is that the definition of a job is a question for Parliament.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for her response and all colleagues who have spoken in the debate. I particularly welcome the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey. One of them mentioned social mobility, which is an important point. It is within the scope of the Government’s overall objective to increase social mobility; it is mentioned often enough. I do not see how it can be outwith the scope of the Bill, as the Minister said, because we are able to discuss it today.

There is no point in repeating a lot of the points that have been made, but I certainly take the issue about an approved form of learning, which my noble friend Lord Young mentioned; it needs to be clarified. Will the Minister write to noble Lords on that point?

The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, perhaps did not fully hear my noble friend Lord Blunkett when he asked whether we could meet with the Minister separately to discuss the issue. It was not just with the Minister but with his opposite number in the Department for Work and Pensions as well to see what might be achieved on this. I accept the Minister said that more or less nothing could be achieved, but we are going to meet, so let us broaden the meeting so that we have somebody who has experience of those matters and we can go into them in greater detail.

My noble friend Lady Donaghy has a great deal of experience in these matters, as noble Lords will know. However, I am not sure that her metaphors stand close scrutiny of the very urbane Minister—leaping over barriers and banging heads together is not quite his modus operandi, and I will not go anywhere near the Superman reference. However, I think the Minister can at least open up channels for discussion on this. We would certainly need to have those discussions before Report.

At this stage, it is our intention to return to the matter because, at the end of the day, we want to increase the number of apprenticeships from all backgrounds. We need to increase the overall number, but many are being put off for reasons that will not be assuaged by the figures quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, and we have to find a way round this. With those comments, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Baker, in saying that, at heart, we want to hear how this will operate, because that will inform our future debates. Like my noble friend Lord Knight, I have no problem at all with competition where it can drive quality and innovation. However, that depends on the nature of the market and the capacity and nous of the commissioning body. Frankly, my concern is that government procurement has not usually shown itself able to have the agility that my noble friend asked for. The constraints put upon public sector procurement drive you to award tenders on a crude price basis. Ministers always sign up to concepts of value for money and outcomes, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said. But as anyone dealing with the Government will know, the reality is that it always comes down to price. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, made a very convincing argument on the principles, but the real question is on the practice of procurement and licensing.

There was a tension in what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said. He had two worries: one was that the franchising system envisaged would allow too little time for a provider to invest morally, intellectually and financially in the very long term; equally, the other was that because of the single-provider approach, there will be little competition at the end of the franchise period. I suppose he would say the risk is that we end up with the worst of all worlds, with low-quality provision and a provider that is not interested in the long term, and the institute having no choice at the end of the day.

It comes down to capacity. We are talking about an institute with 80 people. I hope that most of their time will be spent overseeing standards, because I for one simply do not trust the approach that is being taken. How can we rely on employers, given that their record in this country is so dismal? I hope the institute will have people who can talk to and challenge the panels. But who will be left to oversee these contracts? The record of government and public sector bodies in procurement is dismal.

My other question is to the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. In its deliberations, did the review look at the ability of the public sector to commission in a sensible, grown-up way, rather than the usual crude way that is taken? My noble friend Lord Adonis is in his place, and I am tempted to invite him to talk about some examples of that in rail franchising. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, mentioned this at Second Reading, and clearly there are a number of examples of where the Department for Transport has gone for a bid that was overambitious from the company concerned and has had to come to the rescue. There are also examples of the argument around whether a franchise can be extended to enable the train operator to invest in the future development of services. I hope that the Minister’s department will look at that experience before getting into this sort of system. For me, it is not so much about the principle but about the capacity of the institute to handle what could be a very difficult issue.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords, and in particular my noble friend Lord Lucas, for this very helpful debate on these amendments. My task is to try to reassure all noble Lords that we are on the right page and that we are not talking about what we have had in the past, which was all about a race to the bottom. That was the reason the Sainsbury review was set up in the first place. I hope I can reassure noble Lords that we are trying to achieve the right thing, and I shall explain in more detail how this is going to work.

On Amendment 17, good-quality standards developed by employers and other relevant experts are at the heart of the apprenticeship and technical education reforms, and we must ensure that they are fit for purpose. In future, standards will form the basis of both apprenticeships and technical education qualifications in the reformed system, and they must be appropriate for both pathways. One of the cornerstones of the apprenticeship reforms has been to move away from a qualifications-based system—in the past, apprentices have collected a number of small, often low-quality, qualifications throughout their apprenticeship—to a single end-point assessment that tests all-round competency in the occupation.

By mandating, as the amendment proposes, the inclusion of a technical education qualification in each standard, we would be moving back towards this system, and reintroducing something which was a significant factor in the decreasing quality of apprenticeships in the past under the framework model. There may be some cases, such as degree apprenticeships, where including a qualification is appropriate, but we should not require it in every case. The purpose of the apprenticeship reforms is that they are employer led, so employers and other experts should have their input for each standard.

In addition, this approach may also blur the lines between the two pathways, which are intentionally different. For those on an apprenticeship, the individual primarily gains the knowledge, skills and behaviours set out in the standard through learning on the job and 20% off-the-job training, which is then tested through a single end-point assessment. A technical education qualification is taught largely in a college environment, often supplemented by a work placement and other steps leading to the new TE certificate. By including a technical education qualification in all apprenticeships—which would be the effect of the amendment—we would lose the essential flexibility of standards developed by employers and others and limit the breadth of skills that can be obtained through an apprenticeship.

I noted that a number of Second Reading speeches, particularly that of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, were very strong on this point of flexibility. Several noble Lords have touched on this this afternoon. We do not want to lose flexibility through this process, and we must have some clarity.

The apprenticeship end-point assessment is the equivalent of the technical education qualification for those who have undertaken an apprenticeship, but also captures a wider range of skills and behaviours as well as knowledge. It needs to be given time to gain the value and worth with employers that many currently associate with qualifications. Including a technical education qualification would undermine this by narrowing an apprenticeship so that the measurement is more focused on a knowledge-based qualification and less on occupational competency.

I can, however, reassure the noble Lord that our apprenticeship system is flexible and that qualifications can be included in apprenticeships where that is what employers need, in circumstances, for example, where failing to include a qualification would put the learner at a disadvantage in the workplace or where it is a statutory requirement. We do not believe that technical qualifications should be included in all apprenticeships.

Amendments 26 to 30 relate to copyright. I understand the concerns my noble friend Lord Lucas has raised on copyright, and I hope that I might be able to provide an explanation that will put his mind at rest. My noble friend has proposed that the institute should retain the copyright for standards and common qualification criteria rather than for relevant course documents. Amendments in the Enterprise Act, due to come into force in April, already make provision for the copyright for standards to transfer to the institute upon approval. It follows that the institute would own the copyright for any common qualification criteria that it has produced. By common criteria, we mean design features of the qualifications that are the same, irrespective of the route studied.

The qualifications system in England is unique. Qualifications that attract public funding are developed and supplied not by the Government but by awarding organisations. Our reforms will see the institute taking responsibility for ensuring that only high-quality technical qualifications that match employer-set standards are approved by the institute. This will see the institute working with employers and other relevant stakeholders to set the content of qualifications. There will be a number of people involved in this, on the different panels, including ex-apprentices.

While we recognise that it is a departure from the current system, the transfer of copyright for relevant course documents is an important feature of the reforms. The scope of the licences for the delivery of qualifications and the details of relevant course documents will be established in due course. These may well include a specific technical assessment design specification, as well as other documents that are key to the make-up and assessment of a qualification. We would expect the institute to work closely with key stakeholders, as we propose to do, to make sure that the detail is right. This will, of course, include the organisations that develop qualifications.

If copyright for relevant course documents does not reside with the institute, we could end up with a technical education system where any innovation and employer needs are undermined by commercial interests. While we believe absolutely in competition, we want competition to raise quality and standards. If an organisation other than the institute holds the copyright for a particular qualification indefinitely, this would effectively create a stranglehold that would make it difficult for other organisations to enter the market. This would clearly not be in the public interest or fair value for the taxpayer.

However, we do not want an inflexible system. The institute will be able to grant a licence to an organisation or person for use of documents for which it owns the copyright. This could include granting a licence back to the organisation that has developed the qualification. There are also important safeguards provided for in new Section A2DA.

Amendments 28 and 29 seek to clarify that the institute may grant more than one person a licence or be assigned a right or interest in any copyright document. I would like to reassure noble Lords that it is precisely our intention that more than one person may be assigned a licence if in particular circumstances this is appropriate. I would also like to draw noble Lords’ attention to Section 6 of the Interpretation Act 1978. This stipulates that, unless it is clear that there is a contrary intention, wherever there are words in the singular these include the plural and vice versa. This means that the institute may grant a licence, right or interest in any copyright document to more than one person, should this be appropriate.

I hope that that goes some way towards reassuring noble Lords. In addition, I would like to touch on one or two of the questions—all of them if possible. If I do not reassure everybody, I would be very happy to write to noble Lords. My noble friend Lord Lucas questioned this single route, but each route will include a number of qualifications, each based on a cluster of occupations. If an awarding organisation fails, the institute’s copyright arrangements will allow another awarding organisation to step in. What is important is that this primary legislation does not tie our hands. Panels will be starting work this summer on the detail of the different courses. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, who is, sadly, not in her place, has explained in detail why the commission decided to depart from the existing system and say that it is much better to have one organisation.

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[Baroness Buscombe]

I respect the noble Lord’s response, but 80 employees is quite a lot of people, and that is not where it will end. The number will rise by another 30 later this year as the process is introduced and developed. It is also important for noble Lords to appreciate that we want to use the expertise and interest of outside individuals who understand the needs of employers and what it was like as an apprentice and so on to support the institute so that we have a flow of expertise seconded, in a sense, to the institute, to work with it. So they are not the same individuals who are stressed and stretched at the number of 80.

The noble Lord does not look content with that answer, but is very important that price is not the point here.

My noble friend Lord Baker talked about standards. I am pleased to say in response that a number of standards for apprenticeships have already been published and are in use. We can, of course, send examples to noble Lords, but there are not enough completions to share outcomes yet. That will follow.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I understood the Minister to say that an outcome is not necessarily an educational qualification. Is that correct?

[Baroness Buscombe]

It is.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

Then what is an outcome? I think that at some stage in her speech the Minister said that it was a level of knowledge. She then went on to say that it does not necessarily mean competence in applying that knowledge. When it comes to plumbing, I am all in favour of knowledgeable plumbers, but I want plumbers who can fix things.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I agree entirely with my noble friend. Forgive me if, when talking about knowledge, it seemed as though that was the end of the story. We are looking for occupational competence. That is the key to certification: that people are absolutely prepared and competent to enter the world of work as a fully-fledged employee in that area.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I want to be sure I understand this. If we stick to the example of plumbing, I am assuming that the individual would have carried out an apprenticeship that met the occupational standards that have been determined by the panel of employers. That may or may not include a technical qualification. I hope I have got that right. There are 15 routes, and panels have been set up under the categories of employers—there may be other people on the panels—and they are going to set the occupational standards that will form the basis of the apprenticeship. When an individual reaches the end of their apprenticeship, they should have met all those standards and there will, I hope, be some assessment outcome that will prove to the satisfaction of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, that they can do a Yorkshire fitting and a compression joint. I would like an example of where the noble Baroness feels an apprenticeship would not include a technical qualification.

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[Baroness Buscombe]

Off the top of my head, I cannot give a particular example. The noble Baroness, Lady Cohen, talked about shipping law. Perhaps a technical qualification is not so appropriate for that.

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico]

A lawyer’s qualification would be required, but it does not necessarily have to be called “shipping law”.

[Baroness Buscombe]

Surely that is a good example.

I have been talking plumbers with officials so that I can understand what we are trying to achieve here. The noble Lord is absolutely right: it is about achieving occupational competence. However, if that panel decides, through time and through outcomes, that something is not right, we do not want the hands of the institute to be tied. The point is that the primary legislation will allow flexibility so that those standards could be changed in the light of any perceived failure or lack of occupational competence through practical application of the examinations of the qualifications. I hope that is helpful.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

This is surely what awarding bodies are doing all the time—they are awarding qualifications but if things change, they adapt the qualifications as they go along. I do not quite see why we need this supra-body in the form of the institute to oversee work that goes on all the time with vocational qualifications.

[Baroness Buscombe]

That goes back to the core reason why we are doing this. There were multifarious organisations rather than one overarching body to say that the standards are just not good enough and the qualifications are not preparing x or y for the world of work. This is why the review was set up: there was no consistency in the standards and those bodies were allowed to fail the apprentices. That is what this legislation is all about. As noble Lords said at length at Second Reading, for too long we have failed apprentices and allowed them to be second class and ignored. The same rigour has not been applied in further education as in the higher education system, and that is what we are seeking to put right.

Noble Lords have asked some important, incisive questions this afternoon, and I am sure they will continue to do so throughout the passage of the Bill, about how we do this and what the process is. I reassure noble Lords that this legislation is a framework. It is not intended to prescribe the detail of what the institute will do going forward. The point is to set the framework to allow the institute and excellence to thrive. It will ensure standards of competence so that young people going out into the world of work have something in their hands which means something to all employers and which they can rely on for their future employment.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen, providers will need to make sure that they include the core outcomes approved by the institute and developed by employers and others. However, they can add additional elements to meet employers’ needs. In a sense it could, as the noble Baroness suggested, be bespoke for a particular employer’s requirements, as it is currently. For technical qualifications at level 2 and 3, the content will be the same wherever it is taught. That is key: it gives employers a sense that they can trust that a person turning up with a qualification has something which is recognised and will provide what they are seeking. However, colleges will be able to tailor wider programmes of study to meet local needs.

I hope I have gone some way to reassuring noble Lords that these amendments are not necessary. On that basis, I ask—

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I think I am clearer now on the standards. In the last part of her contribution, the Minister referred to technical qualifications. The Bill is very prescriptive on the institute’s control of approving and licensing technical education certificates. How does that leave the current technical education qualifications? The Bill says that:

“The Institute must maintain a list of approved technical education qualifications”.


How does that impact on existing technical education qualifications?

[Baroness Buscombe]

In essence, I am assured that it will lead to new qualifications. Is that any help to the noble Lord?

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I would welcome a letter clarifying that situation. What happens to the existing ones? We have mentioned these brands almost ad nauseam. Will there be some transition process?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I would be very happy to write to the noble Lord but, in essence, the current qualifications will become obsolete and the funding will be removed. There will, obviously, be a transitional process.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

We are learning a lot as we go along. It was quite interesting, although it was not very specific in the Bill. When all the existing qualifications are binned and new ones emerge, the awarding bodies which have lost will almost certainly challenge it under judicial review. This is going to be a lawyer’s paradise. If you are now going to decide that it is going to be City & Guilds for plumbing, BTEC will want to know exactly why you have said that and why its plumbing qualifications are no good. That is for the lawyers to decide is it not?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I reassure my noble friend that there will be a proper tender process for this. Through it, the current organisations can apply for a licence to continue what they are doing now as an awarding organisation.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I want to pick up on the very interesting point that the noble Lord raises. If you have a single relationship with a provider, when it comes to renewal you are in quite a perilous place, given the closeness that the organisation will have had to government, in terms of being assured that the retendering will be as fair as can be—and not just in terms of capacity. The Minister said what she said about copyright. I have some concerns about how much valuable work you will get from awarding bodies if they are going to hand over their IP to government, but I will park that worry to one side. Given this closeness to government, how are you going to make sure that the reprocurement will work?

[Baroness Buscombe]

First, it is not being handed over to the Government but to the institute, which is funded—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, there is no such thing as independent bodies in this area. All the bodies listed are going to be in one way or another under the heavy influence of government. The very fact that we are legislating for it means that, in the end, Ministers will take responsibility for what the institute does. There is no other way the Government can discharge accountability. Clearly, the Government will use the usual public sector tendering approach, which is a dead hand and will not, in my view, allow for innovation.

I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is going to do, but one thing that has struck me about the meetings we have had so far is that we have not really met the institute or its acting chief executive or the board members. I think it would be invaluable to listen to them to understand how they are going to take this process forward. We have not been convinced that the institute, to which I assume all the usual public accountabilities will apply, will have the actual capacity to handle the kind of sophisticated tendering that is required. That seems to me to be the problem.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I am sorry that the noble Lord seems to be taking quite a negative approach to this. As I said earlier, this Bill is for primary legislation to set a framework. Of course, there may be a situation where Ministers may have to have oversight, but the reality is that we want this to work as charged by the Sainsbury review. We are responding to a situation where we want to turn around something that has clearly not worked, and has clearly not been successful or provided the best outcomes for young people going into the world of work. We are trying to change that.

All I can say at this point is that we are happy to write to noble Lords to explain in more detail what we are trying to achieve through this process. As I said earlier, the legislation will not tie the hands of the institute. Flexibility and quality are key words in how this will develop.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for her lengthy explanation. The main thing I would like to ask her is that, between Committee and Report, we have the chance to sit down and discuss this, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, says, with the people who are going to deliver this, as far as we can find them, so that we can get a real understanding of how this process is going to work.

I am delighted that my noble friend uses the word “flexibility”, but I cannot see how a seven-year provider four years into a contract is going to react when faced with an industry which says that it wants things changed because the technology or the requirements have moved on. The provider is going to ask, “How am I going to do this? It takes two years to change things and then I have a year to get my money back on this. What’s the game?”. I cannot see why, within the structure the Minister has described, two or three awarding organisations would be a problem; I can see why a single awarding organisation is a very deep problem in terms of the power transfer from government to the organisations.

I do not think that anybody who has spoken is opposed to the Government trying to make things better. We all have a sense of what is wrong with the current system, but we do not see that what is proposed answers that. That is not because the structure cannot answer it but because, to do the things that is asked of it, IFATE has to be a much stronger organisation. Alternatively, we need an arrangement, as we have with GCSEs, where below IFATE there is a layer or organisations that have a long-term commitment to and belief in improving things—they may be competing with each other but, essentially, they will work in partnership with IFATE and should expect to be there for the long term. That is better than a circulating body of people who are there and not there on a seven-year cycle, given that education cycles are so much longer. We would like to get an understanding of that and I very much hope my noble friend may be able to organise a meeting for us.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I am very happy to say that a meeting on the basis my noble friend suggests would be welcome between now and Report.

[Lord Lucas]

I am very grateful for that, and I am sure that other Members of the Committee would be delighted to come. I do not think there is any virtue then in continuing my peroration. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I add my support to Amendment 20. Yes, it is absolutely right that we do all in our power to ensure that young people are numerate and literate. It seems reasonable to say that we want them to get to a certain level in mathematics, but that should not be a barrier to everything else. Special needs have not been mentioned. Are we to insist that children who have particular special needs or an aversion to numbers are to be included? We would not expect children who are dyslexic to get to certain standards in literacy because of the severity of their dyslexia.

We have heard about Travellers and immigrants, but there are young people for whom the system—perhaps poor teaching—has not helped them to get it. We then have this whole re-sit culture, and they get more and more fearful of failing and we do not want to label people as failures. I enjoyed the argument and think the word “flexibility” is so important. I know young people who have been taken on by employers, and the employer has said: “Well, they’ve got problems with numeracy and literacy, but they really sparked at this particular job”. Some of them have gone on to take some qualifications later. Let us not label people, let us have flexibility and do all we can to make sure that young people get to a certain level—“C”—in mathematics, but that should not be the be all and end all.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for the amendments and welcome the opportunity to debate them. I fully understand why the noble Lords, Lord Watson, and Lord Hunt, are supporting Amendment 20. Having a sound grasp of English, maths and digital skills is fundamental to getting ahead in work and life. Raising literacy and numeracy levels at all stages of education, including post-16, is essential and remains an absolute priority.

We recognise that current requirements are still low by international standards, and we believe that individuals should have higher aspirations. In the longer term, as the quality of pre and post-16 English and maths teaching and associated learner outcomes improve, the Government should raise maths and English requirements to reflect those of higher-performing international technical education systems.

Since we made it a condition of funding, all 16 to 19 year-olds beginning a study programme who have not achieved an A* to C GCSE in English and maths must continue to study these subjects until they do so, unless specific special educational needs or disabilities prevent them. I will repeat that to underline it: unless specific special educational needs or disabilities prevent them from doing so, so there are exceptions. This has resulted in thousands more students securing these GCSEs by the age of 19. The OECD has commended us on our reforms and, working with schools, colleges and employers, we will build on them.

We will do so by implementing the Sainsbury panel’s recommendations on English and maths. We have accepted the panel’s recommendation that there should be a single set of English and maths exit requirements governing college-based technical education and apprenticeships, and we will continue to require all 16 to18 year-olds to study English and maths if they have yet to achieve GCSE A* to C in these subjects.

The Government consider that English and maths requirements should be included as steps towards occupational competence. As well as good literacy and numeracy, everyone needs an essential set of digital skills to succeed in the modern workplace. Digital skills requirements should be tailored and groups of persons will be in the lead to specify digital skills that are required for entry into particular groups of skilled occupations.

We believe that there should be a minimum level of English or maths which all individuals must achieve ahead of securing technical education certification, as is already the case for apprentices. We will work with the institute to ensure that occupation-specific English and maths requirements are incorporated into each route.

Before I turn to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, I repeat the point about exceptions. We are talking about people with special needs and so on, where it may be just too difficult. The noble Lord spoke about the resit culture, and we absolutely understand that. However, in an environment where we are offering young people the opportunity through apprenticeships for genuine employment in the world of work, there is a hope and desire that those people should understand that basic core skills in English, maths and digital skills will be essential for their future. That is not least because we all know that, in the current world of work, people change jobs a lot and are not necessarily going to follow the same role for ever. Therefore, they need that basic requirement to support themselves into their future.

[Lord Storey]

I am grateful for the Minister’s reply, but how will these exceptions be decided? Will they have to have an education healthcare plan or will they be notified by the school? What will be the mechanism for exceptions?

[Baroness Buscombe]

The noble Lord raises a good question. I do not know the answer, so I will write to him on that.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I want to make sure that I understood what the noble Baroness said. Nobody would dispute that these young people should carry on learning English and maths—I certainly would not—but I would like clarification. Is the noble Baroness saying that if they still did not get a grade C, that would be a barrier to them undertaking an apprenticeship? We all agree on the importance being attached to the basic skills of literacy, numeracy and digital skills, but what if an individual did not achieve that, having made real and determined efforts? Suppose they managed only a D when they reached the age of 18, would that be a barrier to them undertaking an apprenticeship, assuming that the employer would be willing to take them on?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I hope that I can help the noble Lord, Lord Young. That would not be a barrier to an apprenticeship. We are saying that they would have to continue to study through the apprenticeship and stay in that process in order to receive their certification.

[Lord Storey]

That is very helpful. So it is not a barrier to them doing an apprenticeship but they would be studying for their GCSE maths at the same time. Would the family then be entitled to tax credits because the young person is studying maths?

[Baroness Buscombe]

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, makes an interesting point, but I certainly would not want to commit on that. Let me clarify: they would study and do these resits, as we have been calling them, through the apprenticeship process—they would do them at the same time.

I want to attempt to reply to my noble friend Lord Lucas, who asked what would happen if awarding organisations have business overseas. The answer is that the institute can grant a licence back to the awarding organisation for use of the qualification documents—in other words, for use abroad. If there is an existing qualification for an awarding organisation that is out of the institute’s scope then the institute holds no copyright on that.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, for tabling Amendments 21 and 25. I appreciate why she has put forward these amendments, which would allow awarding organisations to retain ownership of the copyright of documents under the new reforms. However, with respect, I cannot agree to them for the following reasons.

First, the qualification is to be approved by the institute, so it is right that the institute is the ultimate owner of the copyright. This will ensure that it can carry out its functions, including awarding licences for the delivery of the qualifications. Also, as there are likely to be multiple contributors to each qualification, the amendments are likely to make it impractical for the institute to carry out its functions to approve the new qualification. All contributors are likely to want a say in matters that relate to their particular part of the qualification. The institute should have the final say if the qualification is to be approved by it.

Secondly, the amendments would be likely to stifle competition once the licence comes to an end. Those awarding organisations whose documents have been approved by the institute would be in a far stronger position than those who were unsuccessful to rebid for a licence. Of course, the authors of documents that make up a technical education qualification should decide whether to give their consent to the copyright being transferred to the institute before the qualification is approved. If they do not, the institute can remove that document from the qualification. That is provided for in the Bill: I draw the noble Baroness’s attention to the provisions in new Section A2DA which provide safeguards for both the institute and the awarding organisations.

Furthermore, awarding organisations do not have to submit a bid to the institute for the new approved qualifications if they do not like the arrangements offered. Under the reforms, it is expected that awarding organisations will go through a comprehensive procurement process before being granted a licence to deliver a qualification for an occupation or group.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords—

[Baroness Buscombe]

I just want to reassure the noble Baroness that we absolutely understand that the market must be attractive for awarding organisations to operate—I wonder if that is what the noble Baroness wanted to touch on.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Yes, that is the gist of it, but the question that both I and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, raised was: what possible incentive is there for awarding organisations to put a whole lot of their expertise into developing materials towards qualifications if they will all be snaffled by the institute?

[Baroness Buscombe]

It is not a question of their being snaffled by the institute. This happens in other sectors where people develop something but the copyright is retained by someone else. It is not peculiar to this sector, a first in this area or unique. If we are to have a single organisation that is to retain and underpin the standards and quality which we all want, and have flexibility without compromising the students, it is really important that we have one body that retains the copyright: the institute.

I understand where the noble Baroness is coming from: people feel that because they have created the content, they should hang on to it. However, the point is that we are changing the system so that the copyright will be with the institute, but those who have created the copyright can bid, along with others, for the licence. It is clarifying for awarding organisations what part of copyright should be retained by whom.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I wonder whether we could have a meeting on the copyright issue, because I find what is proposed incredibly confusing, and I do not think I am the only one around the table who finds that. It would be helpful if we could see how this ends up being a win-win situation for the awarding organisations and the institute, because at the moment it seems to be lose-lose for the awarding organisations.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I am perfectly happy to have such a meeting between now and Report. I re-emphasise that the whole point of this is not to undermine those who produce the copyright but all part of developing a new ethos, so that the best can be retained and be consistent across the board for all those who bid for the licence for those qualifications. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am feeling very disoriented here. A Conservative Government are arguing for nationalisation and against competition while I am arguing for more civil servants. This is not where I expected to be. My noble friend did not answer my question about external qualifications, such as Cisco or CompTIA, being embedded within apprenticeships or FE qualifications. Am I right in assuming that the Government are quite content under those circumstances to have no copyright whatever over those qualifications?

[Baroness Buscombe]

Yes, that is right. It would be absolutely outside the scope of the Bill.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate, with two completely separate discussions. On the issue of copyright, a meeting would be helpful. I am puzzled, because the Government are saying they would encourage those people who wish to bid for work to be innovative in the bids they put forward, but actually the reward for innovation is to be stuck in a competitive tendering exercise—and, by the way, at the end of the tendering period we will nick your ideas. That does not seem to be quite what we want. Surely we want some partnership here and some commitment from the private sector to commit to R&D and innovation, but they must have some share of the proceeds. The idea that they can get that back in the short tender period that is going to operate is, at the least, problematic.

It seems that the Government are relying on the institute to be the innovator and then to tender that out. Okay, if that is the way it is going to work then we should be explicitly told that, but I do not think they can have it both ways. It would be interesting to have that debate.

On Amendment 20, regarding resits, I take what the Minister has said—that many of those young people who resit their GCSE maths and English as a result of the new policy introduced in 2014 now have grade C —and that is a good thing. However, we know there are thousands and thousands of young people who resat but are never going to get their GCSE maths and English. My point is that this can be a very discouraging process for both students and teachers, and I am looking for a more imaginative approach. I acknowledge it is important that someone going into employment can add up and understand percentages and percentiles, but this does not necessarily mean they have reached the GCSE qualification.

Some clarification is required as there is a point I am not entirely clear on. Is it the case that for someone who goes on to an apprenticeship under the auspices of the institute and continues to resit, and can satisfy the employer at the end-point assessment, because they do not have their GCSE maths they are not going to be able to qualify as an apprentice? I may have got that wrong, so having a letter in response to that would be helpful—I am certain I have got it wrong because officials are telling me so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I shall not make any general assertions of what may or may not happen. I take the “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds” approach to this. However, is the institute going to issue an apprenticeship certificate? The schedule refers to the:

“Power to issue technical education certificate”.


We heard some examples of where there could be an apprenticeship without a technical qualification, so is the institute involved in that?

I want to address the point the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made that on the completion of an apprenticeship there should be a stamp of approval, so that you have something to show. In the old days, you got a beautifully illuminated manuscript. I was not assuming that the Government would go that far, but I remember that the master bricklayer who lived across the road from me had an exceedingly impressive document from his apprenticeship. I am not expecting that but I want to know what this actually includes. Can we be assured that every apprentice, on completing their apprenticeship successfully, will get a certified stamp of approval?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and my noble friend Lord Lucas for tabling these amendments relating to certification. While I appreciate the intention behind the proposed changes I hope that after I have outlined my concerns, they will withdraw or not press these amendments.

The primary purpose of a technical education certificate is to enable individuals to demonstrate to employers that they have obtained the knowledge, skills and behaviours necessary to undertake their chosen occupation. Those completing either an apprenticeship or a technical education course will receive a nationally awarded certificate from the Secretary of State. This will confirm that they have attained as many of the key skills and behaviours as the institute has deemed appropriate for a particular occupation. To answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, the Secretary of State will issue the certificate but it will be branded by the institute. For a technical education certificate, this is likely to include confirmation of maths and English qualifications, successful completion of a work placement and other route-specific qualifications. This will provide clarity for employers and support the portability and progression value of the qualifications.

The organisation or consortium of organisations which the institute has approved to deliver the technical education qualification will, however, be entitled to issue its own certificate for that qualification. It is therefore right that responsibility for issuing technical education certificates should be retained by the Secretary of State. This will also ensure that certificates for technical education align as closely as possible with certificates for apprenticeships.

Amendment 31 would allow this function to be delegated to individual awarding organisations. To do so could lead to unequal status or recognition of the value of certificates. It is also right that the Secretary of State should be able to determine whether to charge for the initial technical education certificate or further copies and, if so, how much to charge. Likewise, it will be up to the organisation to decide whether and how much to charge for issuing a certificate confirming that an individual has successfully completed their qualification. I will come on to questions when I have finished speaking to Amendment 32.