Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

In moving Amendment 7, I shall also speak to Amendment 8, which is consequential to it. I will also use this opportunity to apologise for tabling so many amendments without speaking at Second Reading. I did send the Minister an explanatory note saying that I had to be at a funeral that day, which was quite unavoidable, but I apologise none the less. Since everyone else is declaring interests, I declare an interest which is perhaps tangential, but will become less so in the Bill, as an honorary fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute. I revert—in much better heart than I expected before this afternoon began—to the question of definitions, because the Committee has decided to start the Bill with the definition of apprenticeship. There is an established principle that a definition should always come as early as possible when you are talking about anything. My amendment is aimed at the definition of the term "prescribed manner" which appears in Clause 5(1). You have to go to Clause 6(2) to get the definition of it. That is a quite unnecessary separation of the use of the word and its definition. My amendment simply substitutes for "prescribed manner" the definition that is in Clause 6, which is "the manner prescribed by Welsh Ministers", because that is the bit that deals with Wales. I was not intending to look at that aspect of the Bill at all, but one reads through before one comes to the patch that one is concerned with. I perhaps did so too quickly, because I skimmed over the very beginning of the Bill when we have the same phrase used in Clause 1(1). If the Minister finds that he has the information to hand, it might be helpful for him to tell me where the definition of that is; I cannot find it in this end of the Bill. That may be relevant. All I am trying to do is use fewer words, which we are all encouraged to do; take out a subsection, which one should always do if it is unnecessary; and let the reader know what he is reading when he reads it instead of having to turn over a page or two and find the definition later on. I beg to move.