Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I thank the Minister for his reply. I find it slightly odd, when he says that we cannot establish apprenticeships without sector skills councils, that he then says there is not a place for them in the Bill. There is a subtle difference with what the Bill itself says. Clause 11 says: ""The Secretary of State may designate a person … to issue apprenticeship frameworks generally, or … to issue apprenticeship frameworks relating to a particular apprenticeship sector"." "A person" is, in this context, the National Apprenticeship Service, which, as I say, is already set up as shadow authority and is doing good work. So the National Apprenticeship Service both designates the general guidelines for frameworks and then specifies them within each sector skills council. Sector skills councils, according to the current wording of the Bill, play no part whatsoever. We took on board the Minister’s point about it being a hybrid authority and so forth, so we have carefully used exactly the same wording used in the Bill—