Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

Before my noble friend speaks, I applaud him for moving the amendment. It touches on the grave weakness of the Bill, namely the administrative system that will be set up after it has been enacted. At the moment FE colleges have one funding agency, the Skills Funding Agency. In the future, they will have four funding agencies—the Skills Funding Agency, their own YPLA, HEFCE and the apprenticeship body. It will not be a dialogue but a trialogue or a quadrilogue. There will be constant consultations and discussions; it is a recipe for jungle warfare. Each of those bodies will be under severe financial constraints and none of them will want to be very supportive of what is being done. In my discussions over the recess with members of the FE world and, indeed, the education world, they all looked on this as a total nightmare. I cannot believe that there has been a guiding ministerial hand behind the Bill from Ministers from two departments. Nobody seems to have considered the administrative turmoil that will be inflicted on the whole area of 14 to 19 training and education. It is extraordinary. I have never known a Bill that has needed so many Ministers’ letters to explain parts of it. There was a letter before the House rose to explain the system that I have just outlined. Not only are there four bodies, there are regional assessment committees, local assessment committees and a national assessment committee, all replacing the Learning and Skills Agency. I do not know whether Ministers have totally taken on board how complex this will be. I only hope that the shadow Ministers have because I do not believe that this system will work. I do not suppose it will feature strongly in our manifesto to say that we will overhaul all this, but we will soon find, when in office, that this system will simply break down and not do the job that is needed, which is enforcing the 14 to 19 curriculum. The 14 to 19 curriculum is at the heart of the Bill. The Government were right to identify a 14 to 19 curriculum, but to deliver that curriculum there must be 14 to 19 institutions, not some in FE colleges and some in schools. Until that matter is resolved, there will be confusion, jungle warfare and a great deal of ill will and non-performance. I only hope that Ministers will take this to heart. It goes to the very heart of the Bill. We are setting up the most complex administrative regime that has ever been inflicted on any part of our education system. Can Ministers think of any other part of the education system which is as complex as the system that they are creating? I shall answer for them, since that was a rhetorical question. There is no part of the education system that is as complicated as this. It does a disservice to the area that we are all most interested in, which is improving the training and skills base of many young people in our country.