Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, throughout these debates we have made our intentions with regard to Ofqual perfectly clear. We welcome its creation as an independent body to regulate our examination standards. I shall not repeat the debate that we had earlier regarding the sad state of falling exam standards and, consequently, the public’s lack of faith in Ministers, who claim, in defiance of the evidence, that standards are consistently rising. The independence of Ofqual is essential. However, we on these Benches believe that it is necessary for the Secretary of State to be able to issue minimum requirements for standards, provided he cannot lower them. I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, the noble Lord, Lord Bew, and other noble Lords said, and I have great respect for their arguments. This is a very complicated area. Our argument is that the Secretary of State is accountable to the public and must surely be able to respond to their concerns regarding declining standards. The powers in Clause 138 as drafted allow the Secretary of State only to issue "minimum" requirements and so set a baseline. That will not prevent Ofqual exercising its regulatory powers but will allow the Secretary of State to deliver on his promises and to respond, if he judges it necessary, to the concerns of the public. As the figure accountable to Parliament and to the public for the standards of education in the country, it seems to us desirable that he has the authority to do this. Of course, we acknowledge that transparency is of the utmost importance in the use of this power. Furthermore, the Secretary of State should only be allowed to set these minimum standards of Ofqual’s criteria; he should not meddle in Ofqual’s regulatory functions—for example, as was mentioned by the Minister in the previous grouping, in the area of grade boundaries. Therefore, we have tabled Amendment 255B, which would mean that the Secretary of State could intervene to set minimum standards only if Ofqual reported that for him to do so would not lower standards. In other words, Ofqual would effectively have a veto over the Secretary of State’s demands if it considered that his minimum criteria would cause standards to fall. This is clearly a simple adaptation of Amendment 255A, which would allow Ofqual the flexibility not to accept the Secretary of State’s designated minimum standards if it felt that that would affect standards at all. With respect to the noble Lords who have tabled Amendment 255A, we propose our drafting because it would not stop the Secretary of State raising minimum standards, which indeed the Government’s current drafting of Clause 138(1) already allows, but our amendment would allow Ofqual to exercise its freedom not to obey the Secretary of State’s demands in the event that it felt that these would lower standards. Therefore, it would reduce the scope of the Secretary of State’s power in relation to Clause 138 as drafted. I very much hope that this alternative can at least be taken into account in the consideration of this clause and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s views.