Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment. As I have already said this evening, I fully support the need to ensure that young people with learning difficulties have the opportunity to benefit from the life-changing opportunities provided by apprenticeships. There is nothing dividing us on that, but it is how we deal with it that we need to crack. I shall try to keep my contribution as brief as I can. The chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency will be bound by the Disability Discrimination Act and it will be unlawful for him to discriminate in the exercise of any of his functions. In addition, as a public authority, the chief executive will be bound by the disability equality duty in Section 49A of the Disability Discrimination Act. That will require him to proactively improve equality of opportunity for disabled people and promote positive attitudes towards them. It is intended that, when passed, the Equality Bill will revoke the Disability Discrimination Act, and the Equality Act provisions will then apply to the chief executive and to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I want to be as helpful as I can. As an indication of our positive attitude, we met with the noble Lord, Lord Low, and other representatives of organisations on this issue to address how best we can address particular problems. As the noble Lord noted at Second Reading, we are ensuring that assistance under access to work will be available to apprentices. We are working with organisations representing disabled learners and potential learners to examine what practical actions can be taken to ensure that apprenticeships are accessible to those with disabilities. This includes work with Skill, representing disabled learners, and the RNIB to consider how the specification of apprenticeship standards for England could take account of an accessibility benchmark. In the light of that assurance—and obviously we shall continue those discussions—I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.