Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I hope that your Lordships do not go away with the impression that the frequently bandied number 11 is the total of Peers who feel that this clause should be amended. It is certainly 12 and it may be a great deal more. I welcome the idea of putting the requirement for good careers advice in the Bill. I ask that in so doing all references to careers advice be deleted from other legislation so that all legislation about careers advice can be found in one place. That would not be difficult because such references do not appear in many other places in legislation. That would make life easier, generally speaking. I strongly support the thinking behind these amendments, in particular those tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, to Clauses 66 and 71. However, I have a reservation. I am not at all sure that we have thought enough about the person giving the advice. The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, has pointed out that among academics a high percentage wish to retain the cream of the material in their hands for preferment through their own institution, harvesting glory for it. I suspect that from time to time the noble Baroness has herself veered a little in that direction. Secondly, the way in which pupils receive the information is very important, as is their estimation of the person giving it. Being a teacher is a very risky job, because a percentage of the pupils of most teachers do not think very much of them—often for not very adequate reasons and sometimes for very adequate reasons indeed. So there is a risk there. Furthermore, the careers adviser, as in the amendment tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Sharp and Lady Garden, is embedded in the school and has to be a teacher. Teachers have to be timetabled, but what these teachers will have to do will be in competition with their academic subject when the timetable is drawn up for the following academic year. If they are to do the job adequately, they must not only have time to talk to children and read the incoming flood of information about their subjects, but must have time to be in touch with their subject. That means getting outside the school altogether. I wonder whether we have taken sufficient account of the way in which outside school seems to children inside school bigger, more attractive and more grown up, and whether the professional person coming in from outside the school will have a degree of authority with the children that will enhance their value to the school.