Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I am very happy to be more positive. Perhaps I may focus on the introduction of diplomas, which is an essential development for engaging exactly the kind of young person who could have been switched off in the past. These are diplomas which create the opportunity to learn in a real-life context, making learning much more relevant, while ensuring that young people have some of the things that we want them to learn, like functional skills, strong literacy and numeracy. The early diplomas such as those in construction and the built environment, creative and media, engineering, information technology and society, health and development are being well-received by young people. We are getting positive feedback and teachers are enjoying making use of this new teaching opportunity. In preparing for this debate, I wanted to be able to share with noble Lords some of the detailed feedback from young people around these qualifications. I would be happy to do that but unfortunately cannot find it in my pack. I apologise.