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

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Grand Committee

To finish, the Minister will be well aware that skills provision is a vital enabler for delivering against our climate and nature targets, as well as for the first mission of the Government—economic growth—and there is a great opportunity for the Government here to get a joined-up system in place from the local LSIPs to our regional and national strategy related to our climate mitigation and adaptation targets.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, in speaking to amendments in this first group, I wholly recognise the point made by noble Lords that this is about the importance of accountability and reporting, and I begin by reassuring your Lordships that the department, in this legislation and all the work we have done so far, takes transparency, accountability and reporting very seriously, including to Parliament. As the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said, I was accounting to the Industry and Regulators Committee just this morning on the inquiry that my noble friend Lord Blunkett referenced. Alongside my honourable friend the Minister for Employment, hopefully we both demonstrated cross-government working and gave a considerable amount of detail on a range of issues that have been raised during the course of this debate and were raised last week as well. In addition, the Government have today published the Get Britain Working White Paper that noble Lords have referenced.

I will just say, in response to the points made by my noble friend Lord Blunkett about the name of the Bill, that I remember, back in 1997, sitting on the Bill Committee for that piece of legislation. I was not clear at the time that the name had been as significant as my noble friend suggests, but I know that what was included not only in that legislation but in the commitment of that Government to make progress was what made such a difference to the education system under the leadership of my noble friend and that Labour Government.

All noble Lords have complained about how difficult it was to talk about Skills England, while talking at length about Skills England. Nevertheless, I would argue that there is a lot of information already in the public domain. In less than three months, this Government announced Skills England and ensured its first public report was delivered, which talks a lot about many of the questions that noble Lords have rightly identified as important: where are the current skills gaps; what will be the role of Skills England; how will Skills England work across government and with other stakeholders, including employers, trade unions and others? That was in less than three months after the start of the Government.

But we take accountability and reporting seriously and, as noble Lords have said, Amendments 18, 23, 31 and 36A, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Storey, Lord Knight, Lord Blunkett and Lord Ravensdale, and Amendment 36 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, all touch on that issue.

Through this legislation specifically, as we discussed last week, functions currently held by IfATE will be transferred to the Secretary of State, who is already accountable to Parliament. This fundamental accountability to Parliament naturally includes the exercise of any functions that are transferred from IfATE through this legislation. However, I understand that we need to go further than that to reassure noble Lords about the public accountability of Skills England. These functions, having been transferred to the Secretary of State, will be exercised by Skills England where appropriate.

As already discussed, we intend for Skills England to operate as an executive agency of the Department for Education. I emphasise that we are establishing Skills England as a new arm’s-length body, not as a department within the DfE or, as one noble Lord suggested, in some corner of Sanctuary Buildings. In establishing it as a new arm’s-length body, the department will adhere to the requirements set out in guidance published by the Cabinet Office, which provide the highest standards of corporate governance. Once set up, Skills England will report on its functions and performance in publicly available documents. In response to several noble Lords who argued for Skills England producing an annual report, I absolutely commit to that. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, I assure her to the extent possible that equal care will be taken with that report to ensure that it is rigorous and accurate.

I can go even further than that. A sponsor Minister within the department will be accountable to Parliament on all matters concerning Skills England, including setting the policy framework in which it will operate. We will ensure that an annual letter from the Secretary of State sets the priorities on which Skills England will focus. That letter will also be publicly available.

As discussed at last week’s session, a framework document will be agreed between the Department for Education and Skills England in accordance with the Treasury’s handbook Managing Public Money. That publicly available document will set out matters including the governance and accountability framework within which Skills England will operate, Skills England’s core responsibilities and how the relationship between Skills England and the department will work in practice, including on financial matters. This will include setting out the responsibilities of the chief executive to the board and to the department. Once in place, the independent board will provide scrutiny of Skills England, ensure that it is operating effectively within this framework and provide assurance functions, as well as leadership and direction.

In response to the specific points made by noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lord Watson, about progress on the growth and skills levy, first, we have committed to developing the growth and skills levy out of the apprenticeship levy precisely because we have heard calls from business for greater flexibility in our apprenticeships system and on how employers spend levy funds. It is true that fewer young people are starting apprenticeships now; there has been a 40% drop since 2015-16. That is why a key first step we announced back on 24 September was shorter-duration apprenticeships and new foundation apprenticeships for young people in targeted, growing sectors. These will help more people learn high-quality skills at work and fuel innovation in businesses across the country. The reformed growth and skills levy will also enable employers to fund training that meets priority skills needs identified by Skills England.

The noble Lord, Lord Johnson, rightly made an important point about the fall-off that we have also seen in employers’ investment in skills—an issue that we discussed at some length in the committee that I attended this morning. However, it is certainly the case that one of the things that would be likely to encourage employer investment is the flexibility and the listening to businesses that we have already done in order to ensure that the products available respond to the concerns of employers, both for more flexibility and for those changes to apprenticeships that will enable them to use them more freely.

This new offer will also be aligned with our industrial strategy, which I will return to in a moment, thereby creating routes into good skilled jobs in growing industries such as construction, digital and green skills. Skills England is currently engaging on the details of the growth and skills levy, and we expect to be able to say more about that when Skills England has completed that engagement in the spring next year.

I move on to the reporting requirements that the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, included in her Amendment 36, all of which I consider to be important to be in the public domain. Much of what the Secretary of State would be required to report on as a result of that amendment, however, is already publicly available, or will be available as a result of the establishment of Skills England. I hope that I can provide some reassurance to noble Lords about that. Skills England will consolidate different sources of data and insight to inform its assessments of national and regional skills needs, which it will publish regularly. As I have already alluded to, the shadow Skills England published the first such assessment in September this year.

Skills England will also publish further analysis, including the delivery of a standardised taxonomy for the UK and mapping of education pathways to understand the most common routes into priority professions. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is right to say that it is important to bring greater clarity for learners about the appropriate pathways and routes. It will continue to provide published assessments of skills analysis as needed in support of the industrial strategy and the growth and opportunity missions.

Alongside Skills England, the Department for Education publishes a comprehensive catalogue of data. There are currently 11 statistical summaries available relating to further education and a further 119 datasets publicly available to explain the statistics. These include the Employer Skills Survey, which provides information on the skills challenges that employers face within their workforce and when recruiting, the nature of any training provided, and awareness and involvement in various initiatives and programmes. They include apprenticeship data that includes starts, achievements and participation, as well as breakdowns by age, sex, ethnicity, subject, provider and geography, and they include statistics on the employment, earnings and learning outcomes of further education learners in the year after completion of their qualification, including national and regional breakdowns available, and are split by the level and sector subject area of qualification.

Given the significant amount of data already published and Skills England’s role as the single authoritative voice of skills analysis and its publication of data and insights, placing an additional requirement in statute on the Secretary of State to report on a long list of different skills metrics is not necessary. We are taking action through Skills England to ensure skills, data and insight are better used to identify skills gaps and to help determine how they should be addressed. We have been clear from the outset that this is central to its role within an improved skills system.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 27 and in support of Amendment 28 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I start by noting that I support very much the spirit of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and the aspiration of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, although I have a certain sympathy with the Minister in trying to actually deliver on that.

My Amendment 27—I thank my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park for adding her name to it—aims to ensure that the Government’s strategy is up to date and relevant for local areas and that the Government do this by consulting the relevant bodies. I suggest local skills improvement partnerships and mayoral combined authorities although, in his Amendment 36B and his extremely helpful, clear and practical explanation of it, the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, raises the relevance of other groups and the importance of making sure that we do not miss out significant parts of the population as we try to aggregate and understand these local views.

What we are trying to do is to balance technical education qualifications that can be tailored, to a degree, and that best support the needs of a local area, with the ability to aggregate and use the data and intelligence from them to inform national policy. That needs to then feed into an ability for the Government and those to whom they devolve their powers to understand where providers are delivering efficiently on these plans and where they are not, identifying gaps and seeking to address them.

I also want to speak to the importance of the Government setting out how they intend to delegate these powers that are being centralised. As my noble friend Lady Evans said, what the Government talk about and what is actually happening in terms of centralisation rather jars, so I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has brought this forward through his Amendment 28. I do not think anyone is suggesting to the Minister that this is an easy task—if it was easy, somebody would have cracked it already—but it is clearly a very important task and the more she can say about how these different groups will interact with Skills England and how there will be lines of communication from the local to the national and back again, the more confident the Committee will feel.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had a good discussion on this group of amendments about the importance of ensuring that there is both appropriate engagement across government and improved coherence of the qualifications system, alongside the challenges of ensuring that we get appropriate local and regional input into our skills system while maintaining some coherence across it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, is right that some of these issues around devolution are not neat government, as I think I said in a committee this morning, but they are nevertheless important in ensuring that local employers can contribute and there can be differentiation depending on different needs in different parts of the country. I will return to that as I address the amendments, but I wholeheartedly agree that it is very important that we are clear about the way in which a range of different stakeholders will be engaged. Some of this is already very clear; other aspects—I will be honest—will be part of the work of developing Skills England in the building of those relationships.

I turn to Amendment 19 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and Amendment 20 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, regarding Skills England’s work with key bodies, in particular government departments. It is really important that we are able to work collaboratively with a whole range of different partners. Extensive work is already under way across departments to ensure that skills sit at the heart of joined-up decision-making across government.

As I probably said on the first day of Committee— I usually say it when talking about skills—Skills England and our improved skills infrastructure will play a key role in supporting the skilled workforce needed to deliver the Government’s five missions: driving economic growth, breaking down barriers to opportunity, supporting our NHS, delivering safer streets and the clean energy transition. Therefore, it is crucial that there is a cross-government approach and input into improving our skills provision.

Skills England will work closely with the industrial strategy advisory council. The chair of Skills England will sit on that council and, although I accept that that is not sufficient on its own to ensure join-up, it is an important signal. It will work closely with the Migration Advisory Committee, because it is important that we identify how to understand the analysis of where migration is needed as well as understand what more we need to do to boost the domestic pipeline of skills development. It will also work with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that the Government have the analysis and advice needed to inform a coherent approach to the labour market. The publication of the Get Britain Working White Paper, which we touched on, is an important example of that joint working.

In order to ensure that Skills England’s first report was informed and took in this need to look at skills needs across government, the report was informed by a skills audit across government departments. The cross-government approach will also be driven forward through the regular mission boards, which bring together Ministers from across government, helping to break down departmental silos and ensure a strategic approach to our mission priorities. Together, these connections are creating a coherent approach to skills, migration and labour market policy.

Amendment 27 was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and Amendment 36B was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. Regarding consultation with contributors to local skills improvement plans on the introduction and number of new technical education qualifications, it is my view that local skills improvement plans are playing an important role in giving employers a voice in this area. When I was on a visit last Friday and heard from FE principals, one in particular had feared that the development of LSIPs would be just another quango, but she was actually finding it useful to have that engagement with local employers.

Mayoral combined authorities also have an important role to play, using the elements of skills funding that are devolved to them and their convening power, to bring together a clearer view of regional growth needs, through the regional growth plan, and to work alongside local skills improvement partnerships—as well as the other initiatives announced today in the Get Britain Working White Paper—to build a coherent approach to the labour market and to skills development at a regional level.

The assessment of skills needs set out in the first report by Skills England—published in September, as I said—drew strongly on evidence from LSIPs. Skills England has already begun to engage and gather evidence from mayoral combined authorities, employer representative bodies and others on skills needs. This will inform decisions on where standards and, therefore, technical qualifications or apprenticeships are required.

Several noble Lords talked about the challenges of devolution, as I suggested at the beginning. Supporting a more joined-up approach to decision-making on skills at regional and national levels will be central to Skills England’s role, putting the bits back together, as my noble friend Lord Blunkett described it. I accept that there is a challenge, as the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, identified. While there is a very clear remit for those areas that are mayoral combined authorities, those that are not have less devolution of skills funding. However, the Government are preparing a devolution White Paper and we will want to encourage further devolution. We will also want to support local authorities in carrying out their role to input into skills discussions in those non-mayoral combined authority areas. I share the noble Lord’s interest in this, living as I do in the Midlands, in an area without a mayoral combined authority.

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[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister has made many encouraging statements about how the system will work. I still do not entirely understand why none of this can be in the Bill and why we are totally reliant, it seems, on the Secretary of State for Education as the only point of accountability to Parliament or indeed anybody else. It seems that something is missing here in terms of how Parliament in particular can hold Skills England to account.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I went on at some length in my response to the previous set of amendments to spell out what the accountability mechanisms to both the public and Parliament will be for Skills England, both directly in its publication of an annual report and, via the sponsoring department, to Parliament. In respect of specific amendments, the concern is that what we are trying to do here is create a strategic body that brings together the data analysis and insights with the ability then to inform efficiently, effectively and agilely—if that is the proper word—the development of occupational standards, assessment plans and the technical qualifications that employers tell us they need. Creating legislative requirements in advance of it being able to do so will, the Government believe, limit that flexibility, when we really intend to improve it. That is one of the criticisms that employers have made of the current IfATE process.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I have two points. First, if I heard correctly, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, was asking why none of that could be in the Bill. Secondly, what the Minister just said might be a starter for 10, for the drafters, on what could go in the Bill. Of course, if you are incredibly precise about exactly what would be reported on, that limits you, but if something in the Bill says that this spirit will be aligned, it retains a degree of flexibility. With the level of flexibility that the Bill now affords the Government or any future Government, flexibility trumps accountability squarely, as the Minister has heard. I wonder whether she could reflect on that.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I understand why the amendments are formulated as they are, but most of them would create not just the requirement to describe but a condition that would be inserted into the process and that would therefore limit the flexibility and speed with which qualifications and occupational standards could be developed. I contend the suggestion that there is no public or parliamentary accountability in the way we are setting up Skills England. I went through at some length the routes through which both of those forms of accountability will be delivered to Parliament and, more widely, the public—while conceding the point about the requirement for an annual report, for example, and outlining the accountability through the sponsor Minister to Parliament to account for the progress and success in a whole range of areas that noble Lords have talked about.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, as nobody else wants to come in, I will try to bring the discussion to a close. I think the Minister effectively just opened up what the consideration is. I remember saying, in the briefing that the Minister courteously arranged for us, that she would be testing our ability for probing amendments here. I think we have come up with a reasonable pass grade on that. We have found out that, yes, there will be some reporting, but it is complicated, we do not know exactly where to find it and somebody new coming to the field might miss it. That happens all the time. Do the right people know about it? Do you have to be an expert to find out about it? That is one of the problems we have in going through this.

Before I withdraw my amendment, I will say that, if you do not allow us to get at this information easily, certain things will be missed. That is a guarantee. It tends to be that things are missed that it may even be helpful for the Government to address and correct. I hope that, by the time we get to the next stage, the Government will have had a little more time to think about how they can start to address this, because we all wish that Skills England—or what becomes Skills England, or the dark secret that is Skills England—becomes known to the public and functions properly. We just need to know, because that is what we are here for. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendments 25 and 26, tabled by my noble friend, because the policy impact assessment also notes that mature students, learners with disabilities, ethnic minority learners and disadvantaged learners are likely to be disproportionately impacted by the delays she is talking about, which is obviously of concern. I just wanted to add that, because clarity on the delays, as would be addressed by the amendments of my noble friend, would be extremely reassuring, particularly when one looks at the groups that the Government’s policy impact assessment says may be disproportionately disadvantaged.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, quite rightly, the noble Baronesses have raised the issue of how we can ensure continuity of provision while transferring functions under the auspices of this Bill.

I reflect that coming back 14 years—probably 16 years —after the last time when I was responsible for doing any government legislation directly, there are some important improvements in the way in which Governments are expected to lay out the impact of their legislation, with the development of impact assessments. Of course, such things also provide grist to the mill for those who look at them and say, “Well, you’ve identified that there is potential concern about delay, and that must mean that the delay is going to happen”. The point of an impact assessment is that it enables, quite rightly, the Government pre-emptively to identify potential risks that could result from the transfer of functions and property from IfATE to the Secretary of State and think about how those risks can be mitigated. We are confident that that they can be, so I hope I can provide noble Lords with some reassurance about that.

I should also like at the outset to repeat assurances that I provided to noble Lords at last week’s session. We will ensure that the practical transition of functions from IfATE to the Secretary of State will be designed so that standards or apprenticeship assessment plans that are in the process of preparation or approval at the point of transition will continue. Similarly, approval decisions for technical qualifications that are part way through the process will also continue. It is our intention that employers and other stakeholders and, as rightly identified by the noble Baronesses opposite, learners perceive no interruption. The transition scheme that is being developed will be designed to ensure the minimum possible disruption for stakeholders.

I note that Amendments 25 and 26 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seek to place on the Secretary of State a duty to lay before Parliament a report on the timetable for the creation of, respectively, endpoint assessment and new technical education qualifications. As the noble Baroness said, Amendment 24 seeks to place on the Secretary of State a duty to lay before Parliament, within six months of Royal Assent, a report on mechanisms for employers to apply for the approval of new technical education qualifications and to appeal the removal of approved status for existing technical qualifications.

Skills England will undertake ongoing engagement with employers and other key stakeholders to identify skills needs that are not being met through the existing suite of technical qualifications and apprenticeships. This engagement will help identify where new standards should be produced and where existing standards and/or apprenticeship assessment plans should be updated, ensuring that the system responds quickly. With that in mind, Amendment 25 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, would, to some extent, frustrate the Bill in enabling more effective prioritisation of the preparation and updating of apprenticeship assessment plans. We intend for the functions transferred to the Secretary of State to focus on where there is greatest need for a new or updated plan, informed by feedback from employers and other key stakeholders.

We also anticipate that plans in development at the point at which the functions transfer will continue and be finalised by the Secretary of State. Standards approved by the Secretary of State will be published, as is the case in the current system, as the basis for new technical qualifications to be developed. Awarding bodies will then, as now, submit applications for new technical qualifications to be approved in line with standards and reflecting employer demand. IfATE is currently responsible for the approval of technical qualifications; its function is being transferred through this Bill. Responsibility for decisions on the withdrawal of approval from technical qualifications will also transfer through this Bill, which includes a duty to publish information about matters taken into account when deciding whether or not to withdraw approval.

We would argue that Amendment 26 is also unnecessary as it would duplicate existing transparency, which will occur as a matter of course through the Secretary of State’s routine engagement with Parliament and through the establishment of Skills England as an arm’s-length body. As I have outlined previously, Skills England will report on delivery in line with standard practice, including as set out in its framework document and in a manner consistent with other executive agencies.

I turn to Amendment 24 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Placing on the Secretary of State a requirement to report on mechanisms for employers to apply for the approval of new technical education qualifications and to appeal the removal of approved status for existing technical qualifications is unnecessary. It would give employers an additional role in the approval of technical qualifications, which would risk undermining their central focus on highlighting skills needs and, as appropriate, preparing standards that reflect those needs. Where there was clear evidence of continued employer demand, it would be unlikely in practice that approval status would be removed—unless, for example, other significant issues had been identified in relation to the successful delivery of the qualification.

I hope I have provided some assurance that we do not expect a delay due to the transfer of functions in this Bill. We have already put mitigations in place and we will, in relation to the approval of—and the withdrawal of approval of—technical qualifications, continue to follow the current arrangements.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

Before the Minister sits down, can I ask for a bit of clarification here? The Minister has described Skills England as an arm’s-length body a couple of times today. I apologise if everybody else knows this, but can you have an arm’s-length body within a department? I thought that the definition of an arm’s-length body was that you cannot.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Yes, you can. There is a whole range of different types of arm’s-length bodies. Executive agencies are one such type. They are governed by a governance document—the framework document that I have previously described—and by a set of requirements and relationships that I would be happy to spell out for noble Lords.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for highlighting the impact on the groups and communities that could be most affected by delays, as set out in the impact assessment.

I am honestly a bit puzzled by the Minister’s response. She said that my Amendment 24 is unnecessary, but employers are telling us that it is necessary. There is obviously a gap between what the Minister knows and what is being understood, so the more clarity the Government can bring to those specific points, the better.

Similarly, the Minister spoke very confidently about minimal delays—my words, not hers—in approving endpoint assessments and new qualifications. We do not want to frustrate the Government’s plans, but if it is so clear to the Minister that this is a very low-risk area then perhaps she can put that and the exact timescales she expects formally on the record on Report.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I commit to providing to the Committee more detail about the process for transition and some reassurance, which I suspect I have not sufficiently provided, on how that will mitigate some of the risks identified in the impact assessment.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

When the Minister does that, which would be much appreciated, I request that, in addition to more detail about the process, she includes a sense of timescale, which would be most helpful. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, despite the Minister’s dismissal of my concerns about the Henry VIII powers at Second Reading, I have brought two amendments in this group to make sure that the scope of those powers is less broad.

Amendment 38 seeks to restrict the Secretary of State’s powers to amend only the Acts that are already listed in Schedule 3, so that both Houses can appropriately scrutinise the way in which these powers are being used. Surely it is the job of the Government and the department to identify all the Acts to which these powers apply. I cannot see the need for such a clause, unless the Bill has been rushed and the Government are worried that they have failed to capture all the legislation that requires amending with the abolition of IfATE. If this is indeed the case, perhaps there is more redrafting to do than we have already attempted.

My Amendment 39 is focused on the same issue but, rather than restricting the Secretary of State’s powers specifically, it simply removes the power to amend future legislation. Again, I note that all Bills which name IfATE as the body for apprenticeships and technical education have already been passed, so there should be no need to amend future legislation, unless the Government have plans to refer to IfATE in any future legislation that they intend to draft. Given that this seems unlikely, I am once again left with the question as to why this is necessary. I urge the Minister to reconsider this.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin on this group of amendments by reassuring the Committee that the department recognises and takes very seriously the important role that Parliament has in scrutinising consequential amendments. For this reason, we have made every effort to identify all the consequential amendments to primary legislation that are necessary, and to include them as Schedules 1 and 3 to the Bill.

Despite those extensive efforts, there is a risk that in the future we may uncover Acts which need amending because of provisions in this Bill. I reassure the Committee that this is a very limited and narrow power and that any use would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. We have carefully considered the power and believe that it is entirely justified in this case. In fact, the inclusion of similar powers as a safeguard is well precedented in legislation. Our delegated powers memorandum has been considered by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which has confirmed that there is nothing in the Bill which it would wish to highlight to the House.

Therefore, the amendment, and Amendments 38 and 39 in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran and Lady Garden, would remove the delegated power to make consequential amendments to primary legislation. If this were accepted, it would be unnecessarily burdensome on Parliament and require greater amounts of parliamentary time should we uncover Acts that needed minor and genuinely consequential amendments to be made as a result of the Bill. It would, of course, require all those changes then to be made through primary legislation.

Depending on the nature of the issue, and to go back to the previous group of amendments, we might see an increased risk of disruption in the functioning of the skills system for learners and employers. I hope it might provide some reassurance to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, although perhaps not to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, that previous legislation, including legislation passed by the previous Government, has included a power such as this because it provides that important safety net should future amendments be identified.

The power is limited to consequential amendments to previous Acts and Acts passed later in the same parliamentary Session. It does not encompass all future legislation, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, seemed to suggest. The amendments would limit consequential amendments to those Acts specified in Schedules 1 and 3 to the Bill, but our approach in relation to amending Acts passed later in the same Session is not unusual, notwithstanding the challenge from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. We have reviewed legislation and identified that including a power to amend primary legislation passed in the same parliamentary Session has been done in at least 20 other Acts since 2020. It may well be that the noble Baroness has now seen the light, but I suspect it is more likely that this is a sensible, narrow and reasonable provision to put into this legislation. That was why the previous Government decided to do it at least 20 times.

Amendments 40 and 41, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, would require regulations making consequential provisions that are subject to the negative procedure by virtue of Clause 9(5) to instead be subject to the affirmative procedure for a period of six months. As is customary, any consequential amendments to legislation other than primary legislation, which would be subject to the affirmative procedure, will be subject to the negative procedure. The limited and uncontroversial nature of such changes means that this procedure provides sufficient parliamentary oversight while enabling changes to be made without unduly taking up parliamentary time.

Consequential amendments to secondary legislation are not included in the Bill as the power to make or amend such legislation is held by the Secretary of State by virtue of the passing of that legislation previously. We have already identified the amendments to secondary legislation that are needed; these are of a similar nature to those included in Schedules 1 and 3 to the Bill. There is a strong precedent for delegated legislation under the negative procedure to be used to make consequential amendments to delegated legislation. Therefore, the amendment seeking affirmative resolution is not necessary.

I have set out in a letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, the chair of the Constitution Committee, how the clause is inherently narrow in scope as it is limited to making amendments that are genuinely consequential on the provisions in the Bill.

Therefore, for the reasons that I have outlined, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is doing a mighty job in trying to convince us that this is a helpful Bill. Sadly, some of us still have concerns but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.