My Lords, I am grateful for that answer. With regard to changing the nomenclature, I think that the Minister is saying that, if there are 15 things that are essentially level 3 engineering, Ofqual will say, "Call them level 3 engineering; we will not have any fewer of them, but they will all be called the same thing rather than 15 different names". That seems to be immensely sensible, but I cannot see that it is what the clause says. I will have a go at rewriting that.
My remaining concern is how we deal with innovation. I can see that additional subjects do not create a problem under the scenario set out by the Minister, but what about creating new qualifications? GCSE, for example, now has IGCSE to sit alongside it. Suppose Bedales came along with the qualifications that it has successfully developed, which are like GCSE but have a much higher practical content. Is Ofqual going to have the ability to say, "No, we’ve got enough qualifications for candidates taking GCSE. We’re not going to allow you to have another one. It’s different. We don’t want more qualifications at this stage of education"? Are we giving it that power? Or, because the new qualification is different, does Ofqual have to allow it?
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Lucas
(Conservative)
in the House of Lords on Thursday, 15 October 2009.
It occurred during Committee of the Whole House (HL)
and
Debate on bills on Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill.
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Proceeding contribution
Reference
713 c413 
Session
2008-09
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