Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

In part, the noble Baroness has answered her own question. If we are talking about building on success—that it is what we want to encourage—then inevitably those that are not so successful are going to have a lesser budget. Any planning process relies on the accuracy of the data collected. The point is that real data are building up. It has been gathered from discussions with learning providers in this area. I am sure the groupings will not get it absolutely right. In an endeavour to be helpful in this area of the process of commissioning and to ensure noble Lords that we are in no way attempting to undermine the capabilities of colleges, we shall write to you further on this particular issue. I am happy to do that because I do not want there to be dubiety between us. I genuinely endorse the enthusiasm with which noble Lords have commended what goes on in FE colleges. I can resist anything but temptation and cannot resist responding to the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on capital expenditure. I would not deny that there was a bit of hiccup in this—he said with commendable understatement. Yet I make no apologies for the huge investment of well over £2 billion we have put into FE colleges. When I visited my former FE college, once known as Willesden Tech and now the College of North West London, I was presiding over the opening of an impressive new annex. There were clearly mistakes in the current round. That was identified in the Foster review. Yet there has been huge investment in further education. That is why we can see the kind of success that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, was extolling in his contribution.