Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, the Leitch report on skills in 2006 recommended that we simplify the complex and confusing world of vocational qualifications. Reflecting regular calls from employers for simplification, the Confederation of British Industry, for example, has commented: ""The skills system is seen by many as an ‘alphabet soup’—difficult to navigate, even for highly sophisticated employers"." I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that these provisions do not seek to reduce choice or innovation; they seek to organise that alphabet soup to make qualifications easier to understand. We need to distinguish between two technical terms in the Bill. First, "qualification" is the title of a qualification—for instance, "Level 3 Engineering". Under Clause 126(3)(a), Ofqual must seek to ensure that there is a reasonable level of choice between different qualifications. We want there to be enough qualifications to reflect the range of skills and knowledge that employers and others need. Secondly, the form of a qualification is a particular awarding body’s version of that qualification. Under the same provision, Ofqual should seek to ensure that there is a choice between different forms of each qualification—there should be plenty of awarding bodies competing to offer engineering, for example. So there is no attempt to restrict choice or diversity. However, Clause 126(3)(b) seeks to avoid the alphabet soup. We do not want a bewildering range of similar titles that are essentially the same qualification, which makes it impossible for people to make a sensible choice. Let me give a generic example of our concerns. If we had separate qualifications called, say, "Practical Engineering", "Engineering for Work", "Engineering for the Workplace" and "Practical Engineering for Today’s Workplace", which all seek to achieve much the same thing, then real and informed choice, employer understanding and learner understanding could become impossible. So Ofqual might—I stress "might"—want to make it a condition of recognition that an awarding body offers an engineering qualification and calls it, well, "Engineering", and makes sure that it meets the expectations of engineering employers. Clause 126(3)(b) emphatically does not seek to reduce the choice of forms of each qualification. Once Ofqual has established that, for example, "Level 3 Engineering" is the title to go for and sought to get rid of all those meaningless and confusing variations, we want as many awarding bodies as possible to offer that qualification. In that way we will have real competition. That will promote responsiveness and innovation, not fabricated distinctions through title differentiation, which only leave employers and learners confused. So the suggestion in this debate today and in another place that this provision will stifle competition is the opposite of the truth. The alphabet soup leads to a market failure. We need Ofqual to have the powers to tackle that market failure and to ensure that—I am sure that the Committee will agree—qualifications meet the needs of employers and learners. The vision of a simple, clear set of qualifications that are responsive to, understood by and meet the needs of employers and learners is a compelling and necessary one for UK plc. These provisions are an important part of the architecture for securing that. These amendments would make it harder to achieve that vision. I will pick up a couple of points before I conclude. In reply to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, what is meant by "appropriate" or "excessive" will be a judgment for Ofqual to make. The judgment is about qualifications. We want the market to thrive, not just in relation to the titles of those qualifications; it is about rationalising titles, not stifling competition. I am not sure that we fully understood the point that the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, made on the question of Ofqual’s powers, but we will endeavour to respond. In the light of the explanation, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment. We all share similar goals regarding innovation and composition, but at the same time we want to ensure that people can make a choice without being confused unnecessarily.