Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

As a Back-Bench Member, I have been wondering, if the Motion that Clause 58 should stand part was moved and was voted down, what the Government would do then. It has been tabled in the name of the Opposition Bench and that of the Liberal Democrats. That prompts me to ask, after the speedy reply given by the noble Baroness, why it is right to have an executive agency on the one hand and a full-blooded non-departmental public body on the other, and then to say that they will share things. The constitutional position of an executive agency is different from that of a non-departmental public body and I do not think that they will find it easy to share anything. For a start, the executive agency basically has to do whatever the Secretary of State tells it to do; that is its position. A non-departmental public body, if one goes back to 1998, is said by the present Administration to be at arm’s length. I think the noble Baroness used that phrase, although of course the arm can be twisted either to a small degree or to a large one. Nevertheless, the fiction—or perhaps it is the reality—is that non-departmental public bodies are independent. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said, we really do not know anything about how the YPLA will use its independence. It is quite indicative, on reading the Bill, that the schedule covering the YPLA extends over six pages while that for the SFA goes over three. That is the difference in a nutshell between an executive agency and a non-departmental public body. The draftsmen have to take a great deal more care with a non-departmental public body than they do with an executive agency. In this case, the amendments tabled by my own Front Bench suggest that the SFA should be the primary body, because if it is going to employ 1,800 people while the YPLA employs only 500, it can be seen that there might be a good case for the SFA. So I am in a state of confusion because I do not understand, for all the passionate explanation given by the noble Baroness, what is really intended, and I feel quite strongly that this matter needs a great deal more careful consideration than it has had to date.