Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I listened with great interest to my noble friend Lord Sutherland, with his expertise in this subject. I am particularly pleased to support the intention behind the amendments because of the one word which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, kept on mentioning: "independence". I say that with some feeling, having been an independent inspector—not a regulator. You must be independent of the Secretary of State to the extent that you are not subject to direction as to what you are doing. I am interested that "Crown" is used in the amendment. I was a Crown official, not anything else, which meant that I was independent. That is important because the regulator should feel absolutely free to speak up and make comments—and criticisms if necessary—in public without any fear, favour or problem of being a civil servant and therefore accountable to a Minister. You will not have a proper regulatory system, for which I think there is approval on all sides of this Committee, until and unless the independence of the regulator is totally guaranteed. It is unfortunate if all the members of the regulatory body are selected by the Secretary of State. The regulator should be able to select people to form part of the regulatory body based on their own experience and their own knowledge of the kind of people they need on their staff to carry out the role and responsibility. I therefore very much welcome the intention of the amendment, although I can see that there may be some hurdles to overcome on the way to getting to what I think is the best solution.