Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 4th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I want to comment on how the Bill has been handled in this House. When we saw the Bill that came from the Commons, it seemed a very trivial Bill and quite difficult to understand. The words were dry on the page and the opacity was complete: we had no clear idea what the Government were trying to do. However, during the course of the Bill, those with an interest were privileged to have a series of meetings—not just one or two, but several—with officials from the department and with the Ministers themselves, at which we learned a tremendous amount about the Bill and the apprenticeship system that the Government are setting up, which is going to cost £3.5 billion. None of this was obvious when you read the Bill. Those meetings led us to understand how important the Bill was. Therefore, I very much congratulate the department on providing a series of meetings and the Minister on the support he has given us. It is a very good way of handling a Bill in this House and has worked very well.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Government for the series of meetings and echo what the noble Lord, Lord Baker, has said.

I was a little disappointed with the letter sent to us on 30 March. The noble Baroness, Lady Vere of Norbiton, promised on 27 March, at col. 391 of Hansard, to write about the question of signing of contracts, but the letter does not tell us whether or not this is taking place.

We had a significant debate on the question of transition to new technical qualifications but there is no mention of that in the letter. There is in the new guidance issued for the Institute for Apprenticeships, but that merely says:

“We expect the institute to take into account the Department for Education’s development of technical education routes to allow for a smooth transition”.


However, the noble Lord promised that there would be more detailed guidance on the question of transition, so I expected at least a reference to it.

I do not wish to prolong the process but it was disappointing that the House of Commons paper 206 gave apprenticeships a bit of a panning. I do not concur with everything it says but some of the points it makes are valid and worthy of the Minister’s attention, in particular the distribution of the levy and how we will target apprenticeships in areas where there is a drastic skills shortage—in engineering, construction and IT. I would welcome comment from the Minister on that.

Apart from those few caveats, I, too, welcome the way in which the Bill has been handled.