Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I shall speak also to Amendments 30 and 31, which are in the same group. The amendment would give designation in the Bill to sector skills councils. Sector skills councils were set up after the passing of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 to take over from the national training organisations and, over time, have acquired both status and function. Employer-led and essentially working with the assessment bodies such as City and Guilds and Edexcel, they have developed frameworks for different vocational qualifications, including apprenticeships, which play an important part among those qualifications. Recently, they have also been given an important role in the development of diplomas and, hence, are increasingly recognised by the Government as bodies to talk about the training needs and qualifications in specific sectors. Although SSCs are recognised by the Government as having an important role, they are not recognised in the Bill. The reason, I suspect, is that the parliamentary draftsman never likes writing into Bills the names of bodies which may be transient. In the past 30 years or so, we have had quite a number of transient bodies in this area, such as the Manpower Services Commission, the sector working parties, the national training organisations, the TECs—and now we have the sector skills councils. Perhaps, rightly, the parliamentary draftsman thought, "What next?". So instead of writing them into the Bill by name, they are written in by description. Clause 37 states: ""The Secretary of State must by order specify sectors of skill, trade or occupation for the purposes of this Chapter"—" the chapter being Chapter 1, which is all about apprenticeships. It then states: ""The sectors … must in the opinion of the Secretary of State encompass the full range of skills, trades and occupations"." Although the clause effectively describes sector skills councils, it does not say who they are or what they should do. Amendment 15 seeks to fill that gap, referring to Clause 11(1), which, as it stands, states: ""The Secretary of State may designate a person"—" which in parliamentary speak means a body— ""to issue apprenticeship frameworks generally, or … to issue apprenticeship frameworks relating to a particular apprenticeship sector"." I am concerned about the phrase, ""to issue apprenticeship frameworks generally"." What does that mean and what does "generally" mean in this context? It is a very general phrase and not at all explicit. The amendment tries to make the issue very much more explicit, first by saying: ""The Secretary of State may … designate a person to issue general guidelines in relation to the apprenticeship functions"—" functions that include issuing apprenticeship frameworks, but also in relation to other features of the apprenticeship system set up by the Bill. Secondly, it picks up the terminology of Clause 37, which empowers the Secretary of State to, ""specify sectors … for the purposes of this Chapter"," and says that the Secretary of State shall "designate a person to issue" frameworks for specific sectors—not necessarily the same person as in subsection (1). It can be a different body or person that issues the frameworks for specific sectors. Amendment 15 sets up on the one hand the concept of the National Apprenticeship Service. Perhaps we will come back to and vote on at Report stage my amendments from the previous occasion when we debated the Bill, which were about the service being set up on its own as an NDPB. It is already being set up and is a shadow authority; it is actually doing some extremely good things. We have the National Apprenticeship Service as the general overseeing body under the Skills Funding Agency and the sector skills councils as the specific bodies responsible for issuing the frameworks in their own specific sectors, as they do at the moment. Amendments 30 and 31 relate to the transition arrangements spelt out in Clause 15 and say that the Secretary of State should consult the sector skills councils, which, after all, have set up the existing qualifications frameworks for apprenticeships, if they are to be treated as substantive frameworks, as specified in Clause 12. We are asking the Secretary of State to consult the appropriate authorities before making this move and defining those appropriate authorities to include the sector skills councils. Using the terminology of the amendment, we refer to those persons designated to issue frameworks in relation to a specific sector and the representatives of those involved in vocational education and training—the colleges, the alternative learning providers, City and Guilds and so forth. I have four questions for the Minister. In subsection (1)(a) there is the phrase, ""to issue apprenticeship frameworks generally"." What is meant by that? Why is no role specified in the Bill for sector skills councils, which the Government have spent so much time setting up? They have been doing quite an effective job, so why are they not incorporated specifically in the Bill? Why do the Government think it unnecessary to consult such organisations over the transitional arrangements? I beg to move.