Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

We have quite a lot of sympathy with this amendment. However, on reading the debate on the same amendment in the other place, we recognise the importance placed by the Minister there on the need for employees to take some responsibility for their own training. He said that we were in a sense trying to change the mindset and behaviour of employees as well as employers. Certainly we are with the Conservative Party in feeling that good employer practices such as proper appraisal systems are important, but we are worried that young people aged between 16 and 18, having had an appraisal and entering into an agreement, may find that things change rapidly and that what they really need is another kind of training course. The wording of the amendment is inflexible in that, once a training programme has been agreed, everyone must stick to it. Employees would have no opportunity to say that they would like time off to do something else. We should look at all the reasons why something is not agreed. Therefore, while we have sympathy with the amendment, we do not go along wholly with it.