Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I strongly support my noble friend’s amendment. I suspect that we are in a clash of basic philosophies. As my noble friend said, it is an issue of control. I know very well, having been a civil servant for a great number of years, the urge in central government to control everything that lives, moves and breathes. However, if we are genuinely in the business of looking for flexibility and growth in the economy and have a genuine wish to see creativity within the education system, where people can develop things according to the needs of both those engaged in the apprenticeship and their employers, I hope that there will be room and flexibility within the provisions of the Bill for something that is outwith central control. There is absolutely no reason why prestigious companies should not develop their own frameworks for apprenticeships. I am morally certain that if someone came out having completed an apprenticeship with, let us say, Microsoft, they would be extremely desirable property in any other IT firm, which would have no interest whatever in whether or not the apprenticeship had been approved and accredited by the authorities in a particular country. There are international companies that will continue to offer training through apprenticeships to people of any age—and certainly to 16 to 19 year-olds—which will give those people "hot property" qualifications entirely dependent on the reputation of the company, not of some regulating authority. We have here a basic clash of philosophies. The Bill tries to control everything, for understandable reasons. I fully understand why it is necessary to ensure that apprenticeships are of a high quality and that young people come out with a qualification that is recognised and tradeable when they go looking for jobs outwith the company where they did their apprenticeship. I have no problem with that. All I am asking for, and all my noble friend’s amendment is asking for, is some flexibility so that in some instances and in some cases it will be possible for a company or a small firm to continue offering an apprenticeship even after it has been turned down for accreditation.