Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments. They are very reasonable and it is difficult to find too many reasons for opposing them other than bureaucracy. When you weigh it up, the argument comes down very much on the side of the amendments on this occasion and not on the side of bureaucracy.

This is primarily about delivering good-quality apprenticeships for young people and adults. We all know that one of the challenges is to change the public discourse about apprenticeships and vocational training, and we are going to have to work really hard if that is to happen. When I look back at the reforms in schools over the past two decades, one of the changes that enabled us to have a more effective public discourse and empower people to ask the right questions, both for members of their own family and in general, was the availability of data. I hear good-quality conversations now from parents, teachers and young people about education, and that is because they have the information to ask the questions and have the debate.

However, I do not think it is there with apprenticeships and technical education. We do not have it yet, and we have a responsibility, if this system is to work, to build up the data and language so that the public can have a proper conversation and monitor what is going on with apprenticeships. Certainly in the medium term, this amendment would help deliver that. It would put information in the public domain every year, and in time, if not immediately, that would lead to discussion and debate. That has to be good for raising the profile of this area of education as well as holding the institute to account for what it is delivering.

I accept that entirely, but also want to emphasise a different point. Has the Minister wondered whether this does not in some way reflect the annual HMCI report, which is laid before Parliament and on which there is always a public debate? It gets on the “Today” programme, bits of information get into the newspapers and the media, and it becomes part of the national conversation that we have about schools. So having this information in the public domain is the right thing to do for accountability. But it would also help with the cultural change that we have to bring about to have a public debate about this area of education. This is not unreasonable. I can see that in years to come—say, in five years’ time—we might want to review the minutiae and the details. I do not think we ought to be committed to this for ever and a day, but I cannot see that the value of starting the practice of having an annual report, monitoring progress and building up confidence and awareness, would be outweighed by any bureaucratic burden that it might place on organisations.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, has just said. As the House knows, I run the Good Schools Guide. We do what we can to spread information about apprenticeships, but that is extremely difficult because the amount of information available is not good. For universities, by comparison, there is one single source of information. Now, I do not wish the Government to hire UCAS to do apprenticeships, because UCAS is an extremely difficult organisation to deal with and does not let data out to anyone, but something like it which was a single point of information would really help schoolkids and schools because ordinary teachers, let alone career teachers, do not have time to learn their way around 150 different university apprenticeships, let alone all the others. They need a coherent source of information. There is a habit among employers of letting information out only in the two weeks when they want to hire apprentices, rather than all around the year when potential apprentices want to be looking. They are not adjusted to that kind of marketing yet; they are recruiting in penny numbers rather than the tens of thousands, as universities are. There are all sorts of reasons why we need more information and support.

If you want to know where children have gone on to from school, schools will give you—at least English schools will; Scottish schools are more tiresome—a long list of university courses that their students have got on to. Nowhere can you find those data for apprenticeships. You can get data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency so you can publish information from there if you want, but there is no equivalent available for apprenticeships. That makes the whole business of upping the status of apprenticeships, and of technical education generally, much harder than it needs to be. So while I hold no brief for the exact drafting of the two Labour amendments, I am very much with the spirit of them.

On the amendment that followed from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, there is scope for upping the prestige of the Institute for Apprenticeships in this way. It gives it that much more visibility in public, that much more right to comment and that much more right to be heard. At a time when there is going to be a lot of change, a lot of difficult decisions taken and a lot of need for what is going on to be in the public eye so that things that are not quite right get caught early and commented on early rather than being relegated to the pages of a few specialist magazines, an increase in prestige, as suggested in this amendment, is an excellent idea.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, we have not had very much information about what the annual statement from the Institute for Apprenticeships will be. As the institute is a quango, it will certainly produce an annual report—there is no question about that—and it is the usual practice of such reports to be debated in one way or another in the House. So we should accept that as a given, as it were.

As to the content of the report, I am encouraged by the fact that the quality of the directors will mean that it is not going to be a soft quango at all; it will be a very tough and well-informed one because they will be very aware of the fact that it is a great new departure in the education system to concentrate on apprentices, and they will want to ensure that the apprentice system that the country develops will be effective for both employers and students. So I expect the Institute for Apprenticeships to take an interest in nearly all the points mentioned in paragraph 1.

Whether that is needed in the Bill, I very much doubt. The best way to do it would probably be for the Secretary of State to formally write a letter to the chief executive of the institute when one is appointed, which I hope will be soon, indicating the range of information that the report should contain. That might be the best way out of it because the nature of the information will change over the years and you do not necessarily want to keep amending this part of the Bill. There are all sorts of other interesting things that the report should contain. I think the time has come for the Minister to make clearer what he thinks will be in the report. If he cannot do so today, perhaps he might be able to before Third Reading.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Young of Norwood Green for submitting these amendments. I have added my name to Amendment 4. I do not think there is a great deal to add to what he has said, but some of this impacts on the arguments that I advanced on the previous group of amendments. It is about accessibility of information and careers advice on apprenticeships. It is also about the institute being seen as an open and accessible organisation. I think we all agree that we want it to meet its aims and to do so as successfully and quickly as possible. Asking it to provide information and to report to Parliament is not radical; it is about building the sort of confidence that I referred to on the previous group of amendments.

Monitoring how many small and medium-sized enterprises employ apprentices is also important because those employers will be key to the Government reaching their target of 3 million starts by 2020. Quite possibly this will be included in the list of categories mentioned by the Minister in his response to me on the last group of amendments, and perhaps he could say something about that in his reply. To some extent, SMEs have been the elephant in the room: they have not been referred to in our consideration of the Bill to anything like the extent they should have. They will play a very important part in apprenticeships—in small numbers, inevitably, and company by company—but overall they will make an important contribution.

I agree it is important that not just the number of apprenticeship starts but, as my noble friend Lord Young said, the number of employers taking on apprentices are listed. If those figures are not collected, how can the network being established by the institute be measured? The kind of information that I refer to will surely be collected, so I ask the Minister: why would the institute not make it publicly available and do so willingly?

I would like to add to what my noble friend Lord Young said by mentioning the apprentice contract and, to some extent, its status. He talked about complaints and the need for a helpline when apprentices need to pass on their concern about the quality of the apprenticeship being offered. There is no regulator in this sector and I ask the Minister whether the apprenticeship contract will be subject to the Consumer Rights Act 2015. The contract will be fully entered into by both parties, and that Act will play a part in the higher education sector as a result of the Bill before your Lordships’ House. A preliminary investigation led to universities being required for the first time to produce information on the cost of courses and so on, and that would be helpful. If the Minister cannot reply immediately, I shall be quite happy to receive a letter on the status of the apprentice contract and whether it will be subject to the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I would certainly like an apprentice who is having a hard time getting what they want or a proper education, particularly in an SME, to be able to communicate that, and unless there is an established route for them to do so, as described in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, it will be very difficult to ask someone to invent one. There needs to be someone the apprentice can talk to first; otherwise, it will be just too difficult and we will never get to know the quality of the apprenticeship. Anything that became a regular reporting mechanism might well take up a lot of time but not produce any good. However, something should be in place so that, when things are really going wrong, the person at the wrong end of that can have a voice. It seems to me that that is worth including.

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[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

Unfortunately, I am unable to clarify that at the moment, but I will write to the noble Lord. I will also unfortunately have to write to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on his point about the Consumer Rights Act.

As a requirement of the Skills Funding Agency funding rules, the training provider must ensure that a commitment statement and the apprenticeship agreement are in place before funding is released, which implies that these things are happening—otherwise, funding would not be released—but I will confirm that. This is monitored by the SFA, and duplication by the institute is therefore not necessary. I hope that noble Lords will feel reassured enough on the basis of my explanation not to press these amendments.

[Lord Lucas]

Can my noble friend say whether the apprenticeship documents that an apprentice receives include the telephone number of the helpline?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

Again, I am unable to confirm that, but I will write to my noble friend. If not, I think perhaps it should.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, Amendment 6 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Storey. I will also speak to Amendment 28, which is in my name and supported by the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Watson of Invergowrie, and my noble friend Lord Storey.

I make no apology for bringing back Amendment 6. It is very simple. As we discussed in Committee, it would cost no money but would make a great difference. Craft and creative skills, personal services such as care or hairdressing, and professional skills such as business or accounting are not automatically seen as primarily technical. I accept that there has been a move away from the long-standing term “vocational” to cover non-academic qualifications and that the decision seems to have been taken that “technical” is the word of the moment, particularly now as we seem out of the blue to have T-levels—as the noble Lord, Lord Young explained. It would be interesting to know what consultation went on before the arrival on the scene of T-levels from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In order not to narrow the Bill to purely mechanical technical subjects, an explanatory clause would be a helpful addition and ensure that this legislation is seen to be inclusive of all work-based qualifications and across the range of courses offered in further education.

Arts subjects should be held in the same esteem as other courses. It is of great concern to hear that creativity and the arts are being squeezed out in schools. Between 2003 and 2013, there was a 50% drop in GCSE entries for design and technology, 23% for drama and 25% for other craft-related subjects. It stands to reason that this will have a knock-on effect on the take-up of further education courses in creative subjects. We would like to ensure through this amendment that there is no doubt that the attempts to improve technical education, as outlined in the Bill, apply equally across all courses.

Amendment 28 is for clarification. As we discussed in Committee and as the noble Lord, Lord Young, set out, we would like to clarify the transition process between these schemes. There is already a comprehensive list of approved technical education qualifications in the Ofqual regulated qualifications framework. We seek to clarify the relationship between that framework and the list in the Bill. It would certainly introduce complexity and confusion to have multiple qualification lists. Can the Minister clarify that the institute’s list will be a transfer from rather than in addition to the Ofqual list? If so, what systems will be set up to ensure that the transition and transfers are as straightforward as possible? Does the Minister envisage any major differences between these two lists? I look forward to his reply and beg to move.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I add my support to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden. If I remember rightly, in Committee the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen of Pimlico, asked whether the word “professional” might be added to “technical” in the Bill to provide a broader and more prestigious view of what was covered. I think “professional” has a lot of attractions to it in bridging the divide between academic and vocational qualifications. “Technical” gets some of the way but not all the way. I thought it was a good suggestion. The Minister said that he would take it away and think about it. I am sorry if I have missed the results of those deliberations in the letters that have been sent out. But if I have not missed them and we have not had them, could we have them now, please?

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Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

8: Clause 2, page 2, line 14, after “providers” insert “, or persons acting on behalf of a number of such providers,”

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 9. These amendments are very simple. They pick up on my noble friend Lord Baker’s excellent amendment, which was accepted in Committee, to point out that it is not just the local FE college or other major provider that wants to get into schools. There are a lot of excellent organisations which need to get into schools. Women in Construction is one. In needs to get the message through that there are a lot of very good jobs for women in construction. There are similar efforts going on about women in engineering and women in computing. They are not education providers. They have been funded by education providers and employers to produce a flow of students to education providers in general. Those organisations need to get into schools just as much as individual providers, if not more, because in many cases they have a level of prestige and glamour which the local FE college lacks. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey]

Amendment 17 is in my name and those of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and my noble friend Lady Garden. I moved a similar amendment in Committee, when I talked about “good” or “outstanding” FE colleges being awarded either status only if their careers education was of a high standard. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, spoke in a sort of roundabout way about the importance of careers education, but was concerned about straitjacketing through the use of “outstanding” and “good”. Having reflected on what she said, I have come back with a slightly changed amendment, which highlights the importance of careers education in further education and says that when Ofsted carries out inspections, it is important that the careers guidance in those establishments be of a high calibre.

One of the most important things that we need to do for young people is to provide that guidance and knowledge about careers. Many of us do it with our own children: if careers advice is not available, we have networks of people who can talk to our children and perhaps provide opportunities for them to do work experience. But many children and young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, do not get that network of support, and it must be down to the education system to provide that. Careers education should start in primary school. I remember that at my own school we had a careers session, where people from different jobs and workplaces would come into the school. There would be a carousel approach, and children could listen to them. That should go through to secondary schools, so I was delighted that the Government accepted the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on university technical colleges being able to come into schools. They will be able to go into schools and tell young people about the different opportunities. We do not want a straitjacketing approach but one which lets young people see all the different possibilities. We have talked about this for a long time and have heard all sorts of promises about what will happen down the road. The situation is getting slightly better, but surely, if we are going to do one thing, the most important thing we can do for young people is to get careers education right.

I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Young, said on Amendment 4. Careers education is not just about careers advice and guidance, as important as those are, but about preparation for a career. If a young person has a career opportunity, I would have hoped that the educational establishment would prepare them for that, whether through techniques for interviews, filling out an application or preparing a CV—all those things come together in good careers advice. I hope the Government will listen to this, as I am sure they will, and that we can agree that careers advice should be part of the establishment of good FE providers.

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[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for tabling the amendments, which relate to careers. I have to say I am still struggling with the concept of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, being the meat in anyone’s sandwich. He is a pretty tough piece of meat, based on my experience of sitting opposite him at the Dispatch Box. That is meant as a compliment, actually.

On Amendment 8, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lucas, Clause 2 requires schools to ensure that there is an opportunity for a range of education and training providers to talk directly to pupils about the technical education qualifications and apprenticeships that they offer. The amendment is intended to ensure that such access is extended to people who represent groups of providers, such as women in construction or manufacturing. I remember attending an event held for women in manufacturing in your Lordships’ House a few years ago. I agree that we need a degree of flexibility so that pupils hear from the person best placed to inform them about the opportunities on offer. I recognise that in some cases that may not be the provider itself but perhaps it could be an ambassador, an employer or a member of a trade association or representative body, speaking on behalf of a number of small providers.

We will publish statutory guidance that will set out more detail and make it clear that we do not wish to impose unnecessary constraints. We are placing the onus on the school to develop their own arrangements for provider access, including agreeing with providers who will attend to talk to pupils. Clause 2, both as drafted and as we intend to clarify in underpinning statutory guidance, already provides for persons acting on behalf of a number of providers to access pupils. To get really technical and legal for a moment, I queried this in terms of statutory interpretation. The legal authority for our decision to resist the amendments is found on page 1019 of Bennion on Statutory Interpretation:

“Where an enactment refers to a person it is usually taken as intended to include that person’s agent authorised either expressly or by implication”.


The earliest legal authority on this is R v Symington (1895) 4BCR 323. It follows that the words “on behalf of” in the statute would not be needed to allow a person to act on behalf of providers.

Turning to the very good point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, regarding the amendment from my noble friend Lord Baker, it is certainly clear to me, and my officials have confirmed this, that the obligation on the school is to ensure that there is an opportunity for a range of education and training providers to access pupils, that they must prepare a policy statement and that that statement must include, for example, grounds for granting and refusing requests for access. Obviously it must be at the discretion of the head; if he feels that the people coming along are, frankly, not of quality and are not going to give their pupils the right advice, then it must be within the head’s remit to refuse access, provided that he is providing a range of education and training providers and has some other alternative that is better.

Amendment 9 is also in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas. It is intended to ensure that the policy statement produced by every school will set out the circumstances in which both providers and persons acting on their behalf will be given access to pupils. The current provisions already allow for such persons to talk to pupils. As I said, we will publish statutory guidance which makes this degree of flexibility explicitly clear: the onus is on schools to liaise with providers to agree who is best placed to talk to them.

Turning to Amendment 17, which deals in more detail with Ofsted and careers advice, careers advice is a vital part of the role that every school and college must play in preparing students for the workplace. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that careers advice should start in primary school. Primary Futures does excellent work in this regard. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, that the Careers & Enterprise Company, in which we are investing considerable money—£90 million—has made an excellent start.

However, the quality of the careers offer is considered carefully by Ofsted when conducting standard inspections of FE colleges. Therefore, the amendment is unnecessary. Matters relating to careers provision feature in all four graded judgements made by Ofsted inspectors. First, in judging leadership and management, inspectors take account of the extent to which learners receive thorough and impartial careers guidance to enable them to make informed choices about their current learning and future career plans. Secondly, in judging the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, inspectors consider how far learners are supported to develop their employability skills, including appropriate attitudes and behaviour for work. Thirdly, in judging students’ personal development, behaviour and welfare, inspectors consider how learners benefit from purposeful work-related learning, including external work experience. Finally, in judging outcomes, inspectors consider information about students’ destinations and the acquisition of the qualifications, skills and knowledge that will help them to progress.

Ofsted also evaluates the education and training provision offered by the college, including 16 to 19 study programmes, apprenticeships and traineeships. In making these judgments, inspectors consider the extent to which each type of provision offers tailored careers advice and work experience opportunities to students and develops their employability skills. Noble Lords made some good points about Ofsted’s approach to that, and I will certainly discuss that further with Ofsted shortly. However, I hope that what I have said about its obligation framework reassures my noble friend that colleges are held to account properly for the quality of their careers provision and that he will be able to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his short CPD session, which I hope I shall manage to remember and will rehearse later in Hansard. Given that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

22: Schedule 1, page 26, line 4, at end insert—
“( ) The group of persons that prepared a standard must have considered, including within the standard, a qualification widely recognised by employers for that occupation or for an aspect of it.”

[Lord Lucas]

There has been a problem with apprenticeships, at least historically, where people have wanted to include qualifications within them. I would be very grateful if my noble friend would make it clear that this has now passed and that the idea of including qualifications within apprenticeship qualifications, or indeed within qualifications at FE colleges, is now fully accepted. Generally, this is to the advantage of the learner. If I am doing a qualification within one of the 15 proposed Sainsbury routes, and that apprenticeship involves getting to know cybersecurity, I do not want to have a haberdasher’s qualification in cybersecurity: I want to have something which will be recognised in every single industry which might require that skill. The same applies to accountancy, marketing and other skills which are common across the routes, where these are things that you might wish an apprentice to learn in the course of their apprenticeship, or have experience of. It also applies particularly to technical qualifications in IT, where you would expect an apprentice to follow one or more international qualifications produced by the likes of Microsoft because that is what the industry as a whole demands and that is what produces a young person who can move from job to job because they have the qualifications that are recognised in their next job and not just those which are appropriate for the particular patch where they did their apprenticeship.

It is also important in this context that the specifications for apprenticeship should recognise that there are alternative qualifications in some circumstances. You may want your young person to be familiar with computer networking but there are two, maybe three, top-quality international qualifications in computer networking. Which one do you want to use? It will be the one that works with your business. However, the people in charge of the apprenticeship will recognise that these are equivalent and that either one can count and fit in place. I think this has been accepted now. There seems to be some residual difficulty reported to me. However, I would be very grateful for my noble friend’s assurance that the concept of embedding qualifications in apprenticeships or in further education courses is now fully accepted. I beg to move.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I support my noble friend’s amendment. I suspect that individual apprentices will work on the basis that he mentioned as certain qualifications in certain industries are not in the regular run of FE colleges, or universities for that matter, but have been accepted by the industry as the accepted standard. My noble friend mentioned Microsoft. Cisco does this as well. It is particularly the case in the whole area of computing, where various companies have established qualifications which have become the standard. In fact, the Cisco qualification for schools is more demanding than GCSE computing, and many people work towards that. We have to make sure that these qualifications do not disappear when the Institute for Apprenticeships clears out a lot of valueless qualifications. These are not valueless, particularly the international ones. Given that the digital revolution is happening so suddenly, a huge variety of examinations and qualifications in artificial intelligence may come our way. Each area will want to protect its own interest. I would hope that the Institute for Apprenticeships would take this message on board. I do not know whether a statutory measure is required.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lucas for this amendment, the effect of which would be to require each group of persons who develop a standard to consider whether an existing qualification ought to be included within it. Occupational standards will form the basis of both apprenticeships and technical education qualifications, and need to be suitable for each of them. The standard should include the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to form the basis of either an apprenticeship or a technical education qualification. Including existing qualifications in addition to the knowledge, skills and behaviours would cause complications when technical education qualifications are being developed using the standard.

One of the core principles of the apprenticeship reforms is to move away from qualifications. Under the framework model, apprentices collect a number of small, often low-quality, qualifications throughout their apprenticeship which often do not give employers much reassurance about apprentices’ ability to do the job. By moving to a single end-point assessment, the apprentice will be tested on the knowledge, skills and behaviours set out in the standard and their occupational competence to do the whole job, not just a small section of it.

This amendment does not require the inclusion of qualifications in standards but it is moving the approach back towards the system that we are moving away from. Although it is no doubt something that the awarding bodies would welcome, it could actively encourage employer groups to include qualifications where they may otherwise not have done so. That is likely to be contrary to the Government’s strategic guidance for the institute. However, I can reassure my noble friend and the House that in occupations where there is a qualification that is needed for an apprenticeship—for example, to achieve a professional status—they will not need to be prompted by this Bill to consider its inclusion in the standard, which is permissible as long as they meet set criteria for an exception. This is in line with the employer-led nature of the reforms. We therefore believe that this kind of direction is not needed in such a system. I hope that my noble friend will feel reassured enough on the basis of my explanation to withdraw this amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am mostly comforted by my noble friend’s reference to employer-led matters. If that indicates that if employers want a qualification and fight hard enough they will get it, that seems to me satisfactory. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 22 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 26 and 29 to 33, which are in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Watson, and my noble friend Lord Storey.

This series of amendments is intended to limit the institute’s ability to acquire wholesale the intellectual property relating to materials developed by awarding bodies. We expressed serious concerns about this in Committee. This is a significant proposal, which was not canvassed in the skills plan. As drafted, it is unclear whether awarding organisations retain any copyright to potentially key documents relating to a qualification once ownership transfers to the IATE. It is further proposed in paragraph 23 of Schedule 1, proposed new Section A2IA—“Transfer of copyright relating to technical education qualifications”—that:

“The Institute may assign … or grant a licence to another person”,


in the copyright transferred to the institute. These are draconian proposals.

The arguments we have been offered include that the Government—that is, the taxpayer—will have paid the awarding body to develop the materials and are therefore entitled to ownership. Publishers often give advances to authors, but they do not thereafter claim copyright. The payment is for the skills and expertise; the contents should remain the property of the author organisation. Another reason given was that it would provide continuity. If awarding body A loses a contract to awarding body B, there could be a seamless transfer. This begs a few questions. If awarding body B has won the contract, how could it do so without providing its own materials, and what self-respecting awarding body would opt to take over a competitor’s materials? But what if awarding body A had gone bust? I find it sad and inexplicable that so much of the Bill presupposes that those involved with further and technical education are overly liable to go into insolvency. It is a pretty robust sector. Might it have gone into insolvency because the Government have taken over all its materials, one wonders? In any case, in the unlikely event that a key awarding body went into liquidation, I feel sure that measures could be taken to retrieve any materials which had not already been handed over lock, stock and barrel to the Government.

We have heard from City & Guilds and other awarding bodies that the provisions in the Bill on the ownership of intellectual property and qualifications are unclear. As many awarding organisations operate outside England and export their current qualifications overseas, this lack of clarity will have an impact on the development of qualifications. We note, as we did in Committee, that in both general academic studies and higher-level studies the Government do not attempt to own the copyright qualifications. We caution that this approach could have a disproportionate impact on the technical qualifications market in the UK.

We propose that institute-owned copyright is more appropriately applied at the level of national standards, allowing awarding organisations to retain their copyright in their own materials. The power of the institute is so uncertain that it makes it impossible to ascertain the value of investing in developing qualifications going forward. Further, it should be noted that there is no mention in the Sainsbury report, which was the progenitor of the skills plan, or in the skills plan, of the handing over of copyright to the institute in documents related to qualifications.

As to single awarding organisations, what evidence is there that the current awarding arrangement has led to distortions of the vocational market? As we pointed out in Committee, there is a certain inconsistency in government policy, which is going all out for more competition in universities—raising considerable concerns in this House—with a move to a monopolistic model for vocational awarding. The current mixed-market model may not be perfect but it supports and encourages investment and innovation, as well as giving choice and safeguarding learner interests in the event of any awarding organisation failure. A similar model was proposed for GCSE and English baccalaureate subjects, and was abandoned following robust evidence from the Education Select Committee and Ofqual. Why should these qualifications be treated differently? If a single-supplier franchising approach was deemed too high-risk for the general qualifications market, why should it be deemed suitable for technical qualifications? I wonder whether these restrictions might be connected with the fact that those in government—whether in Westminster or Whitehall—will predominantly have achieved their own success through academic routes. How many people in the DfE have followed an apprenticeship or a work-based route and understand first-hand just how relevant and rigorous those programmes are? The Civil Service used to have graduate and direct-entry routes, both of which could lead to the highest levels. These days, most will be graduates. It is therefore all the more important that those in government listen to the practitioners and heed their advice. I hope the Minister will be open to these important amendments, and I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I completely support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden. I do not think that any Peer who has been involved in the Bill wishes it anything other than complete success. We are all behind the objectives and the methodology which is set out in the Sainsbury report and what has been built upon that. We want to ensure in the passage of the Bill that what we are producing will work well.

In the process of putting the Bill together, certain ideas have been developed which will not weather exposure to practice. When it comes to sitting down with industries, awarding bodies and others, the ideas that are being touted as the way things will be under the Bill will not be the things that work out. I want to make sure that the Bill has sufficient flexibility built into it so that, if things need to take a different turn to make this project succeed, they will be able to, and we will not find ourselves hobbled by primary legislation.

I have one separate amendment in this group that is aimed at the question of multiple qualifications within one particular sub-route—I do not yet know what they will be called; in the picture supplied to us they look like the fingers of a hand, although I do not think they will be called fingers. To restrict yourself to one single awarding organisation creates a monopoly in the short term, and in the long term it reinforces it. If you take one particular skill set within the universe covered by the Bill, and you say, “Only this awarding organisation can create qualifications for this for the next seven years”, what other awarding organisation will maintain the ability to compete? None of them will. Why should they? There is no business for seven years and they cannot afford to do it. It is all based on a collection of people, and anyway it is not something that stays still; it continuously evolves. There is no way that they will remain in a position to compete, so when you come up to the renewal of this single licence, there will be only one competitor.

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I hope that I have explained that the reforms to the skills system will succeed only if the institute retains copyright of relevant course documents. In making such significant changes to technical education, it is incumbent on us all to make sure that we prioritise the needs of employers and of students. There is, however, a great deal of flexibility within the Bill for the institute to make arrangements as it sees fit, and I firmly believe that we should trust it to make decisions that are for the good of the skills system. I therefore hope that my noble friend Lord Lucas and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, will be sufficiently reassured not to press their amendments.

[Lord Lucas]

I am grateful for what my noble friend said on my amendments, but to turn to the main group, where she has adumbrated some new ideas in very few words, might we have a meeting between Report and Third Reading so that we can better understand the details of what is proposed?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for her full reply on all this, but I am left as confused as at the start. There is this curious thing that the institute can grant a licence back to the awarding body that actually created the materials in the first place or can give them to multiple awarding organisations. I find that a curious concept given that awarding organisations have to have a commercial structure and to make ends meet, and the materials with which they trade are very often their assessment materials. The Minister has made great play of the fact that there is flexibility in the Bill. But the trouble is that, by the time the Bill goes through with these measures enshrined that copyright is transferred to the institute, there is not much flexibility there if copyright is once lost to the institute.

There were a number of other things that I will read in detail in the Minister’s reply. I will not go through the different points that I have scribbled down because they merit a lot of thought. I also pick up the request made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that we will need some serious conversations about this because it will come back at Third Reading for a vote unless we can get some clearer reassurance.