Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

Amendment 96 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas is welcome and I support it—indeed, I have put my name to it. I hope the Minister will give it a favourable response. I am assured that, on the first point, he will be able to offer some comfort that further education and sixth-form colleges will remain independent. Assuming that this is forthcoming, it will be good news. And yet—here I share the concern of my noble friend Lord Elton—it does not seem to be very clear in the Bill, hence this amendment. I hope at least that it will be clear in the text of Hansard. It is also vital, however, that we are given some reassurance about the second and third subsections of the amendment. One of the great benefits of sixth-form and, particularly, further education colleges is that they should be encouraged to specialise and so attract large numbers of students from outside their respective immediate areas, and indeed, outside the remit of their local authorities. The very nature of these colleges depends on being able to offer specialised education which is therefore able to be of a much higher standard. Can the Minister reassure your Lordships that local authorities will continue to accept that students should be allowed—indeed, actively encouraged—to travel to different colleges for specialist courses? I think that most noble Lords in the Chamber would agree that the independence of these colleges has secured a virtuous cycle—the more a college has specialised, the more it has attracted students from distant locations, and as it has started to attract students from far and wide to a particularly good course, the more the college is able to specialise. This must, surely, be allowed to continue. I was very interested to hear about Amendment 103, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, regarding the workings of sub-regional groupings of local authorities. Like my noble friend Lord Baker, I look forward to the Minister’s response as to how these 41 sub-regional groupings are going to work, how far they have progressed and to what extent he accepts that there will be boundaries between the groupings.