Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

While I understand the desire behind the amendments to ensure that learners are not disadvantaged, sector skills councils as the issuing authority will not have the flexibility to issue draft apprenticeship frameworks. All frameworks must meet the Specifications of Apprenticeship Standards for England and for Wales respectively before they can be issued, and there is a good reason for that. I admit that I thought that there was consensus within this Chamber about preserving the quality of apprenticeships, so let us think about what we are saying. Of course, we want flexibility. The fact that we have grown apprenticeships to 180 frameworks over a recent period demonstrates sufficient progress. I cannot comment on Australia having 500 while we have only 180; I can say only that we have responded to the demands of employers. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, that we allow companies to go down the road of establishing their own self-accreditation, provided they meet standards. I reject the idea that we would wilfully obstruct the creation of apprenticeships with a process that would somehow delay it. We encourage sector skills councils in everything that we do. The UKCES, the body that examines them, is going through the relicensing process and looking carefully at how long the approval process takes. Were we to have a process whereby we laid down standards, reassuring one group of people that an apprenticeship was a quality product, while allowing another group to go ahead and say, "Well, it doesn’t matter. Actually, you submitted it. You didn’t actually meet the standards, but you can carry on doing it", it would create horrendous confusion. Trying to make sure that the maximum number of apprenticeships is available is the first task that we face in convincing employers, parents and teachers that apprenticeships are a quality product—and we have not yet finished that task by any means. I would plead with your Lordships not to introduce a circumstance in which no one is sure about the status of a training programme—is it or is it not an apprenticeship? We ourselves were accused of creating uncertainty with programme-led apprenticeships, and we tried to eliminate it by ensuring that there was a work-based agreement between the apprentice and the employer and that there was a job tied to the apprenticeship. People want quality and standards, and we have ensured those in these specifications. The abandonment of those would be a retrograde step, undermining much of our good work. We have seen employees and employers beginning to appreciate the value of apprenticeships. We do not want unnecessary bureaucracy in the approval process and we will take that point away to ensure that we do not introduce anything different. However, let us be clear about the demand for apprenticeship frameworks. It is a demand-led system that comes from employers. I do not want to get into the arcane nature of the debate at Kew about whether a qualification should be botanical or horticultural. No doubt people there agonised about that. We already have horticultural apprenticeships, but if employers demand a botanical apprenticeship, or if there is a specific need for one, there is nothing to prevent them going to the sector skills council to get that. The noble Baroness is right that it is a question of control. However, it is also one of quality and standards, and reassuring the public that they are getting a genuine end-product. It must not be something that an employer can continue with, recognised or not, suggesting that there is an apprenticeship framework which has met the standard when clearly there is not. We have an obligation to ensure that we do not obstruct progress and that we have a demand-led system that responds to the needs of employers. That is exactly what sector skills councils do because they are made up of employers. If the demand is there, there will be an apprenticeship framework. I will go away and investigate why Australia has 500 apprenticeship frameworks while we have only 180. We do not do much kangaroo rearing in this country, but I do not know what specific frameworks Australia has. I shall be interested to find out. The Leitch report was absolutely clear—we set ourselves some very ambitious targets—that by 2013 we will have in place the entitlement for all young people who want an apprenticeship to have one. That was clearly on the understanding that we were talking about a quality product. I understand the laudable intentions of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, but unfortunately there may be an unintended consequence regarding the system of quality control. We believe that quality control is vital if we are to sustain the reputation of apprenticeships. I hope that in those circumstances he will feel able to withdraw his amendment, taking into account the assurance that I have given to all noble Lords who have entered into this debate—that we will be looking to ensure that we have not introduced any unnecessary bureaucracy in the approval process.