Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
Main Page: Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Conservative - Life peer)Enterprise Bill [HL]
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts
Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD)
My Lords, I rise to speak to our Amendment 50 and to the other amendments in the group. Before doing so, I should declare my interests. This is not at present in the list in the register because it is very new, but I am very recently president of the AoC Charitable Trust. I am also an honorary fellow of the City & Guilds Institute and a patron of the 157 Group.
I think we have similar probing questions about this clause and, in particular, about the definition of precisely what is and what is not a public body. That is really what Amendment 50 is about. It raises questions about the slightly odd wording at the end of new Section A9, which says that,
“‘public body’ means … a public authority, or … a body or other person that is not a public authority but has functions of a public nature and is funded wholly or partly from public funds”.
There are difficulties with such a definition. For example, Kids Company is largely funded by public funds. Is that a public body? A lot of charities are largely funded by public funds for one reason or another. Are they public bodies? I certainly would not have thought of them as being public bodies. Or are you going to take the ONS definition? The ONS, for example, is now classing housing associations as public bodies, although a lot of the money they receive does not come from the public sector. However, equally, the ONS does not class the Student Loans Company as a public body in spite of the fact that the Student Loans Company receives all of its funding from a public body. Therefore, as I say, that definition strikes us as being extremely loose, and I think it is necessary to know precisely what the Government have in mind when giving such a definition in the Bill.
In general, I share very much the view of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, in asking questions about how far the Government should go in setting targets here, there and everywhere for public bodies—so much for localism, if I might say so. To provide that “The Secretary of State shall set such targets” leaves very little discretion to the locality. One would hope that, actually, the whole thing was done very much in conjunction and consultation with localities. A great many local authorities, such as in Birmingham, work very closely with local enterprise partnerships and do set targets for themselves. Indeed, as I shall go on to explain later, they also set targets for vulnerable young people who should be taken into apprenticeships. This clause raises lots of questions on which we need some clarification.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 50, and will pursue the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. It will not surprise the Committee, given my interest in the charitable and voluntary sector and the reports that I have written for the Government, that my line of questioning follows that which the noble Baroness has just raised.
It is absolutely clear that many charities and voluntary groups carry out functions which the Government find difficult to fulfil. The Government can provide the vanilla flavour, but the more difficult and challenging aspects of our society may often be better addressed through smaller, local voluntary groups. They will therefore have, in the words of the Bill,
“functions of a public nature”,
and be,
“funded wholly or partly from public funds”.
Rather than wait until today’s debate, I asked the Minister’s officials to throw a little light on the matter, and they very kindly wrote back. My question was whether the definition of a public body under Section A9(7) would cover bodies such as the Charity Commission and some charities. The answer was:
“The Charity Commission would fall within the definition of public body (it’s a non-ministerial department and therefore part of the civil service). No targets can be set for charities unless they are also public bodies prescribed in the regulations. We will set out the full list of public bodies for whom a target may be set in regulations. There will be an opportunity for those affected to respond to a consultation on this during the passage of the Bill through Parliament”.
We are discussing it in Parliament today, but I have not yet seen the regulations, although I may have missed them. This is a trifle too opaque. The sector is entitled to greater clarity now so that we can provide the appropriate level of scrutiny.
We are all very much aware of the deficiencies in the process for scrutinising regulations or statutory instruments—we had a clear example of that last week. I very much hope that, if my noble friend cannot give a direct answer this afternoon and tell us where the list is, she will be able to promise us clarity before we reach Report, at which time we could have a further, better and more focused debate on this issue, which means a lot to individual charities and voluntary groups. They need to know exactly what lies in store for them.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendments. I slightly disagree with my friend in this matter, the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. I do not see anything wrong with setting targets; obviously, there ought to be consultation. The question I wanted to ask is: apart from these public bodies, is each ministerial department to be set targets? Do they currently have targets? In my brief ministerial career, we used to gather departments together and get them to report at least once a month on whether they were meeting apprenticeship targets. I would welcome a comment on that.
The Government have set themselves a big task in reaching a 3 million target over the course of this Parliament. I have on many occasions raised the problem of having a large public target, such as 3 million. The latest figures I have for apprenticeship starts show that there were 444,000 during 2013-14, which is good until you realise that a significant number—some 161,000—were aged 25-plus. I have nothing against adult apprenticeships as such, except that, if we disaggregate the figures again, a significant number would not be new-start apprenticeships but people being reskilled in existing jobs. I still think that the challenge we face is getting more young people into apprenticeships—those numbers are much lower and, in some cases, we have even had a decline. It is not as though the demand for apprenticeships is not there. For example, Semta’s estimation for the number of engineering apprenticeships required over the next period of time is huge—something like 830,000—so we have a huge task on our hands in relation to apprenticeships.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for his clarity and succinctness, and for the other comments that have been made in this debate. If I do not answer all the points exactly, I hope to do so during the course of a series of amendments that we have; for example, I shall have some more to say on quality a little further on. I shall try to look at these amendments in the round.
Amendment 50 seeks to remove part of the definition of the term “public body” from the clause, which relates to bodies that are not public authorities but have functions of a public nature and are funded wholly or partly from public funds. The definition gives an overview of the types of bodies that might be covered by the duty. The Government think it right in principle—and I think that there is agreement—that public authorities and other bodies performing public functions should be capable of being subjected to targets. However, this is only a power to prescribe; it does not oblige all those that fall within the other public bodies category to be subject to a target. Therefore, a particular body will be subject to targets only when the Secretary of State makes secondary legislation—just to be clear. Our intention is that bodies with a workforce in England of more than 250 employees will be subject to the duty.
My noble friend Lord Hodgson is absolutely right that bodies are entitled to clarification as to which bodies are in and which are out, and we will set out the full list of public bodies affected in a consultation at that we intend to publish during the passage of the Bill. That will be an opportunity for those affected to respond to the consultation. I am sure that it is not yet available, but this Bill starts in this House, and there is an interplay between what we are doing here, which is perhaps relatively narrow, and the emerging policy on apprenticeships, which coincides with it. The list of bodies will be set out in regulations, and we will bring those forward for debate in both Houses, following the passage of the Bill.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
So it is going to be a very long list of a series of charities and voluntary groups, and it will not be available until after the Bill has passed. Is that what the Minister just said, because that is not terribly satisfactory?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I shall try to answer on the specifics, to give a feel for bodies that will be in and those that will be out. A key concern was that, for example, bodies as small as Kids Company could be caught, but the receipt of the grant that it used to have, should it still exist, would not suffice to bring the body into scope. That is my understanding.
To respond to a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, we are going to use the ONS definitions as a starting point for considering which bodies should be in scope. However, as I have said, we will be consulting. We appreciate that a body may feel that it has good reasons for not being in scope. For example, I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, is concerned about smaller housing associations. Following the ONS’s announcement on Friday, the Government have confirmed that they will,
“bring forward measures that seek to allow housing associations to become private sector bodies again as soon as possible”.
That would take them out of the scope of this duty, and we will take account of that when preparing our consultation. It is a fast-moving area, so I appreciate the complications, but I am happy to engage with people to give them as much clarity as we can. The scope will be set out for consultation, and the limit of 250 employees will help to some extent to make people less concerned about bodies that might be brought in.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
One area causing particular concern is that of the larger charities providing overseas aid, and distributing it for DfID, which come above the 250-person ceiling or floor and are operating not in the United Kingdom but overseas. It would help if officials or the Minister could let us know whether they as a category will be included in the need for apprenticeships.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I have already spoken to the amendment but, to sum up, the point of the question is that we are asking the Minister to give us a reason why those who join apprenticeships should not be paid the living wage.
Amendment 49H in this group is about the need to ensure that managers supervising apprenticeship programmes have appropriate training. There is a well-established discourse on the question of whether management, particularly in private sector companies, is up to the job of increasing productivity, growing the economy and providing the jobs of the future. That receives its main focus around training and there is plenty of evidence on this issue, which I am sure others will wish to speak to. It would be a sensible Government who thought through all the issues relating to this new duty on the public sector, in particular, if it were also applied to the private sector, to ensure that management was up to the task concerned.
We have other amendments on the details needed to create a better policy on apprenticeships more generally and the role that they play in the development of the economy, but Amendment 50AC sets out—I hope for public bodies and for private companies, but if companies are not included then just public bodies—the sort of information that will be needed if we are to make a good job of this. We hear too much in anecdote and we do not get enough publication. The Minister said that she will write with such a lot of information already. Maybe she has access to the sort of information listed in this amendment, but we are interested in whether we can get a bit more of a sense of the progression, success and value that people are placing on these apprenticeships. This would be a good place to start. I beg to move.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I have an amendment, Amendment 50AA, in this group. It is a probing amendment but it ranges slightly more widely than the focused questions that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, put to the Minister.
The overall purpose of my amendment is to ensure that all apprenticeships have the appropriate level of quality—an issue that came up in various comments earlier. It does so by adding a subsection to the end of new Section A9 in Clause 18 on public sector apprenticeship targets, requiring the Secretary of State to set out minimum standards for apprenticeships. It also requires the Secretary of State to consult on what is required. In tabling this, I have been helped, advised and encouraged by the Engineering Employers’ Federation, which is somewhat concerned about the lack of clarity on the position as a whole.
That having been said, we had a debate on Tuesday last week on the draft English Apprenticeships (Consequential Amendments to Primary Legislation) Order, which the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Young of Norwood Green, have spoken to, and which was replied to by my noble friend Lord Courtown. A number of questions were asked in that meeting, some of which cross over with what we are discussing this afternoon. I received the answer from the department as I came into the meeting this afternoon, so if I am not absolutely up to date with what the responses are to the questions raised, it is because I have only had it for about half an hour.
I very much support the Government’s policy of creating 3 million apprenticeship starts in this Parliament mentioned in paragraph 18 at page 6 of the Explanatory Notes. There is a real need for vocational training. It could equip people better for practical work and give them a more satisfying, satisfactory and long-lasting permanent job than, dare I say it, a 2.2 in media studies, which may not equip them for an enormous amount. This relates to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, on the quality of courses available.
The Government’s ambition is very great. It is worth while pointing out that last year there were 696,000 live births in England and Wales and 56,000 live births in Scotland, so a total of around 750,000 live births. Therefore, in a five-year period you have 3,750,000 live births, if those numbers are maintained, and we are talking about creating 3 million new apprenticeships over the next five years. That is 80% of the people who will have been born. I know they are not going to be apprentices in their first few years, but it is the scale of what we are thinking about. Of those currently being born in a five-year period, 80% will be expected to take up an apprenticeship.
Lord Snape
My Lords, in listening to the debate so far, I think that one thing that unites all of us in the Committee is the desire to see proper apprenticeships in future years. Young people are understandably cynical about what they see as the exploitation that has often taken place in many of the so-called apprenticeship schemes that were introduced. As the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said, they are not proper apprenticeships as we would understand them. I do not blame the present Government for that situation, or even their predecessor; these things have been going on for many years. I recollect more than 40 years ago, as a very junior member of Harold Wilson’s Government, which dates me somewhat, learning with some degree of concern about what was happening with the youth training schemes. They were introduced in all good faith by a Labour Government but abused by employers, who took on youngsters and promised them jobs in future that never materialised or for which they were not properly trained. In one case that stuck in my mind, they were offered a permanent job, but only at YTS rate, which was, of course, less than the traditional rate for the job. So there is a widespread concern and cynicism among young people about these schemes.
A few weeks ago, we had a debate about apprenticeships on the Floor of the House, and I drew your Lordships’ attention to one or two of the abuses taking place at that time. I do not wish to repeat them chapter and verse, but it is instructive that one scheme in particular—an apprenticeship advertised by Subway, the sandwich maker—reverberated through the technical press around the world. The job had been advertised as an apprenticeship; the description was “a sandwich architect”. I asked whether somebody taking that particular qualification would move from white to brown bread or cut the crusts off or move to gluten-free bread before six months was up. But one thing that that job certainly did not do was qualify any young person in any meaningful way towards a better future.
There was another so-called apprenticeship advertised by a firm of estate agents; the young person concerned was supposed to go around and look at various properties, to check advertisements in the trade press to see where the properties were advertised for sale and see whether it was possible to lure the owners of those properties from the books of one company to another. To do that job one would inevitably need a car. There was no mention. Indeed, the young person who came to talk to me about this said he followed this up and there was no fuel allowance or any other allowance for the time involved in the role. He was supposed to drive around, presumably at his own expense. He was 21 years old and possessed a car, but, as he said, at £2.37 an hour—which was the advertised apprenticeship rate—he did not see that it was possible for him to do it and how it would qualify him for the future.
I hope the Minister can give the Committee some reassurance about the future. I welcome the Government’s intention—I am not quite sure how they will implement it—to outlaw some of the practices. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred to people looking for grants in the way that they do. Human nature being what it is, that is how certain people react. It does not give young people any great hope for the future. Indeed, I have used this word twice before, but I shall use it again: it gives them a great degree of cynicism about the way their talents are exploited.
As my noble friend Lady Corston said, for those of a certain generation, apprenticeships usually, if not inevitably, meant in engineering, heavy industry and that sort of area. It was accepted that although you might be paid a little bit less than some of your contemporaries, after a five or six-year apprenticeship you were well qualified and could see a way forward in the world of work for the rest of your life. It is not possible to say that under schemes like the one I have just mentioned. I will be interested to hear from the Minister what plans she has to stop that sort of exploitation of young people and to give them some genuine hope that the work they do as apprentices will properly qualify them for the world of work in future.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
I place on record my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, for his very welcome but quite unexpectedly effusive support for what I have been saying. I hope he will forgive me, but when we get to Amendments 53ZC and 53ZD, about the pubs code, at about 7.30 pm, normal service will be resumed.
Lord Snape
I hope that we are not going to do any such thing at 7.30 pm. I understand that we are dealing with pubs on Wednesday, not today. I look forward to the noble Lord adopting his customary reactionary—if I may say so—position as far as pubs and publicans are concerned. Of course, I will adopt my usual progressive position, to use phraseology that would make Jeremy proud of me, I am sure.
Lord Snape
We can go to the pub after Amendment 52Q, as the noble Baroness said, but I am grateful for that clarification. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is not too disappointed.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
I would be delighted to discuss the issue of a pub code with the noble Lord at any time. All I would say is that he should not describe me as “reactionary”, but as “realistic”.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
I do not know whether the noble Baroness has a copy of the letter that the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, sent to us, but in it he says:
“In addition, the Skills Funding Agency … runs the apprenticeships helpline which was given an expanded remit in the summer, enabling anyone involved in an apprenticeship—not just the apprentice—to raise concerns about any element of how the apprenticeship is being delivered”.
I did not get a response on the concerns expressed in the Ofsted report and in anecdotal accounts. The letter goes on to say:
“The SFA have rigorous checks in place and have embarked on a programme of staff training to ensure that these issues are dealt with effectively”.
I like the promise. I would put against it “CAD”—“check against delivery”. How will it do it, given the vast number of apprenticeships? That is not to dismiss the fact that Ofsted will also do some work on this, but there is a commitment in that letter.
Setting the standards is one thing. Having a defined framework in understandable language is great. The problem we have is those employers that might do that, but fail to deliver. It says in the legislation that they will be punished and fined. I am interested in that because it might help, but I am far more interested in seeing whether the Skills Funding Agency has the ability to monitor apprenticeships to ensure that they are delivering on quality as well as quantity and how it will do it. If the Minister does not have an answer that is okay; I am quite happy to accept it in writing. However, it is a part of the Government’s commitment to raising quality as well as quantity.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
My Lords, I am very concerned about the pre-pack administration idea. I understand that it has a superficial appeal in terms of saving jobs but the reality is that jobs can also be lost among the creditors. The appearance is that jobs may have been saved but very often the creditors—the small businesses that are the suppliers of the company in pre-pack administration—can be out of work. They are below the water—the part of the iceberg that you do not see. The noble Lord said that creditors have a bad deal in a pre-pack. They do not have a bad deal; they have no deal at all. Not only do they have no deal at all but the pension obligations pass to the pension regulator, which in turn is passed on to other firms.
In my experience of pre-pack administration, the arrangements are, frankly, utterly superficial and exceptionally difficult to police in terms of whether or not a fair value is being achieved for the assets that are being sold. I am not clear yet that we have got to the bottom of what I call repetitive pre-packs, in that directors and managers who are not very good businessmen go through the pre-pack arrangements at reasonably frequent intervals. I hope that this is something that the Small Business Commissioner might be able to think about because I think he will have some role to play here and we did not pick up on this point when we were discussing that part of the Bill.
I have not seen the new proposals that have been produced today but I think that the issue that the noble Lord has raised in Amendment 52ZA is something that we need to consider very carefully. I have a couple of questions for him about his amendments. Amendment 52ZA(a) states that,
“the owners of the company must approach the company’s investors for approval prior to entering any pre-pack proceedings”.
What is the difference between an owner and an investor? The investors own the company. I am not quite clear what the distinction is. I may be missing the point about what the distinction is between those two categories in terms of what the noble Lord is seeking to achieve, but I understand the force of some of the other points he is making in Amendment 52ZA(b), (c) and (d), and I think they are of interest.
Under Amendment 52ZD, which concerns the “debtor in possession”, one issue is how the company continues to trade in the circumstances, because it has to take on new obligations. One of the things most feared by company directors, and quite rightly, is trading while insolvent. Therefore, will Amendment 52ZD give directors protection because as you approach the edge of the company’s solvency, your lawyers, advisers and accountants will say, “If you cannot prove that you had thought that you could make good and pay the creditors as they fall due, you are committing a criminal offence and the law takes a very serious view of that”? Perhaps the noble Lord could explain a bit more in a minute as to how that protection is going to be provided under Amendment 52ZD and, in particular, where the company is expected to continue, how security is going to be given to suppliers working for the company and providing further services or goods for which they may or may not get paid at some date in future.
However, there is a central point in Amendment 52ZA. Notwithstanding what may have been proposed today under the new regulations, we have been slightly seduced by the attraction of pre-packs. I think that the hidden damage that they do to a lot of suppliers and smaller companies is something that we have tended to overlook. The noble Lord made an interesting point in the amendment, but there are some issues to be clarified.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
I rise to talk about this clause, which comes at a strange place in the Bill. We did actually discuss much of this in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, and I made the probably too political point then that we have not seen much of insolvencies recently, but that does not mean that we will not—we will, because the cycle will turn round and there will be more insolvencies. So now is a good time to think about how to avoid some of the mistakes that were made last time round.
I had not realised that this report had been published today. I think it might be the Teresa Graham report. Teresa Graham has come up with some extremely helpful ideas, which we discussed during the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill. The best ideas included having a panel appointed to approve any pre-pack and that panel comprising people either of the R3 Group or the Turnaround Management Association or some such other organisation. I think there is a need for a panel. The other suggestion was that a review needs to be undertaken by an independent third party to assess the viability of any business going through a pre-pack.
I think there are not that many pre-packs in number, but they can be extremely helpful. I declare an interest as I am on the board of a retailer—not that my business has done this. For many retailers, they are particularly helpful because of the peculiar nature of UK property law, which is that people get stuck in these long-term contracts under different conditions and the only way they can get out of these contracts is to use a pre-pack. Therefore, they have a purpose and they have a role.
If I can help, because I shared the confusion of my noble friend Lord Hodgson, I think what is meant in Amendment 52ZA by “the owners” is the majority owners, the shareholders, who must approach the minority investors. In the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn—if I can read his mind—that clearly makes sense but, of course, it is going to be extremely difficult where public companies go through a pre-pack, which does happen, for them to contact all the investors. In paragraph (b), where it says,
“any personnel advising on pre-pack proceedings”,
I am not sure whether that is meant to include accountancy firms, and whether personnel means internal or external. I have argued for many years that there should be much greater investigation into the role of accountancy firms in insolvency situations. They are often called in by the banks to investigate a company, but they have an incentive for their report to recommend an insolvency procedure because they are immediately subsequently appointed as the administrator, receiver or liquidator. I can see the economic argument for and benefit of that, but I have also seen instances where, frankly, the accountancy firm concerned has just pushed a perfectly good company into administration and extracted millions of pounds of fees—I do not exaggerate—through that insolvency procedure.
These amendments are welcome to the extent that they raise these questions. There is a particular problem with the interaction between current insolvency legislation and the current employment legislation, which leads to the sort of situation discussed earlier. There needs to be a much more holistic approach to both employment and insolvency law because people in such circumstances are often under extreme pressure of all sorts. It is difficult for them to clarify their legal position at extreme speed. We must try to find a way to assist people.
I particularly welcome and am interested in Amendment 52ZD, which seems to have its roots in Chapter 11. That is a proposal that merits further discussion and reflection, perhaps on another Bill at another time, but it is good to see it raised in a Bill that has the title “Enterprise”.