Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I am delighted to respond to this short debate. I was interested to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, had to say in introducing this debate. At times, it was difficult to hear her because when noble Lords leave the Chamber after Questions it can be very noisy. I support what the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Verma, said about the importance of Ofqual being held to account and the key role that Parliament will play. Ofqual will want to fulfil the aspirations set out in the noble Baroness’s amendments. We all accept the principle that Ofqual should be independent of Ministers and accountable to Parliament. The Bill delivers that. Its provisions are modelled on those for Ofsted. It is tempting for noble Lords on all sides of the House to think of things that seem important now and write into the legislation that Ofqual should report on them. I appreciate that that is not the kind of game that we are in, but I appreciate the thought that has gone into these amendments. We should resist that temptation to create a tick-box mentality that risks Ofqual having to report on the detail of A, B and C, even if, at a later date, the X, Y and Z are more important, although I think the noble Baroness is driving at a higher principle than that. We should instead trust that the accountability arrangements will truly hold Ofqual to account for those things that are really important at the time. Amendments 244 and 265, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Sharp, relate to success measures and my answer to them is similar. We agree that Ofqual should establish specific success measures and report against them. We would expect Parliament, probably through the Select Committees, to insist on nothing less. Indeed, the chair of interim Ofqual, Kathleen Tattersall, stated in a letter to the Public Bill Committee in another place that she intends that Ofqual will do that. Amendments 266, 267 and 268A refer to how determinations under Clause 138 will need to be published. I appreciate what the noble Baroness is trying to say. If Ofqual were foolish enough not to report on them, Parliament would have something to say. The same might be said about Amendment 268A, which relates to reporting to Parliament about Ofqual’s functions. On Amendment 267, any further guidance given by the Secretary of State on fee capping or on anything else will be published, allowing Parliament to look to Ofqual to give its view. Briefly, on consulting on the plans, Amendment 269 risks being a bit prescriptive and going into too much detail about how Ofqual should go about its business. It is Parliament’s job to hold Ofqual to account on how effectively it plans but, again, I appreciate that Parliament will want to know how it goes about its business, and the communication between Ofqual and Parliament will be key. If the Bill puts into place lots of hoops for Ofqual to jump through, Ofqual will spend its time jumping through them and not necessarily planning, but I appreciate the importance of clear communication in planning. On the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I caution that there is a difference between transparency and a white noise of information. There is a difficult balance to be struck, and it is important that public bodies get it absolutely right. If Ofqual spends its time publishing literally vast amounts of information, what is important may get lost in a deluge; so it may be possible to fulfil a publication requirement but not necessarily to communicate, and the effect might be to improve neither understanding nor confidence. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, argued this point rather eloquently in her Reith lectures a few years ago, in which I was very interested. She argued that transparency can create its own problems if it results in, ""a flood of unsorted information and misinformation that provides little but confusion"," although I appreciate that noble Lords do not expect something like that to happen. A key founding principle of these reforms is transparent decision-making rather than transparent information. We must be careful not to confuse the two, as these amendments would. In the light of what I have said, and bearing in mind the communication that we have already received from the interim Ofqual, I hope noble Lords will consider not pressing their amendments.