Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Cohen of Pimlico and Baroness Donaghy

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico (Lab)]

I, too, support the amendments and thank the noble Lord, Lord Nash, for his helpful letter. My heart lifted when I saw in it that there would indeed be controls to prevent employers refusing to release apprentices for training. That is jolly good; it will improve the quality of apprenticeships no end right there.

I retain an area of muddle in my head. We are all talking about apprenticeships, and degree-level apprenticeships operate rather differently. I thought degree-level apprenticeships would be designed by the Office for Students. I believe the Bill says that their conditions will be enforced, including the formal condition that people must be released for training, by the SFA—that is fine if I have understood it; there is nothing wrong with the SFA—while the design of all other apprenticeships and the setting out of conditions will be done by the new Institute for Apprenticeships. Do I still have this wrong, or will the new Institute for Apprenticeships design all our apprenticeships, including degree-level apprenticeships? There is a cross in responsibilities between the higher education Bill and the technical education Bill. To be frank, I am still “Slightly Muddled” of the House of Lords here. I would welcome assurance on this point.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being present at Second Reading. I hope that when the Institute for Apprenticeships is up and running the first apprenticeship it approves will be to teach the acronyms in this complicated area—it might do the whole country a service. As an educational administrator of 33 years, I do not understand the Bill, which I think is because we have a very complex and inadequate system which we are trying to turn into an adequate one. I fully accept the Government’s intentions; I am not absolutely clear whether they will be achieved.

I understand from the Minister’s briefing that the work to develop the detail of what the new system will look like is yet to be done and that the measures in the Bill are the first step, so I recognise that he will not have all the answers. However, in echoing the concern expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen, who takes the final decision about judging the quality will be a measure of the success or failure of the scheme. If the 20% off-the-job training works, the compliance issues are reliable and the Skills Funding Agency has the material—

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[Baroness Donaghy]

I will be brief, because some of these issues will come out when we deal with other amendments. In supporting issues of quality, it is first important that we know what the organisational chart will look like. A valiant attempt was made at an organisational chart, but whether I was any wiser at the end of reading it, I am not sure. I am not sure that an individual applicant, their parents or providers would be clear either. It seems to me that there is a separation of important issues of quality, not unlike the break we had just now—we were talking about one subject and have come back to talk about another. I am interested in the 20% off-the-job training. How will compliance with that fit in? To what extent will the integrity of the employer be relied on? How will it fit in with the qualifications that will be subject to either the Institute of Apprenticeships or the successor body to HEFCE? I am just not clear what the organisational chart is.

I do not expect the Minister to give me an answer straight away, but if I cannot see my way through this, acronyms and all—I have a bit of background in this area—I do not think we have necessarily got it right when it comes to the function of the Bill. Who exactly is in charge? Who will enforce compliance? Will it be separated out? If so, that relates to the issue of quality that my noble friends Lady Morris and Lord Young have spoken to very clearly. I am asking for clarity as the Bill goes through Committee, rather than for all the answers now.

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico]

I, too, am not asking for all the answers now. I think we have a muddle with providers here. As I think everybody knows, I am chancellor of BPP University, which provides degree-level apprenticeships. We had expected that to be looked after and designed by the Office for Students. Fine—but the Bill says that all apprenticeships will be looked after by the Institute for Apprenticeships. Outside the university, we do skills training and proper apprenticeships, and I think I am clear that that part of our work will be looked after, regulated and designed by the Institute for Apprenticeships. If the Bill said that it applied to all apprenticeships, including degree-level apprenticeships, I would know where I was, but is this what we mean? I thought that bit of the university, of which I have the honour to be chancellor, was to be regulated, along with the rest of the university, by the Office for Students. There will be more and more universities doing this—they are natural providers of degree-level apprenticeships—but I think they will be in as much of a muddle as I am.