Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I do not expect the Government to accept this amendment as I do not think it has a place in the Bill. However, it has the virtue of bringing into the light of legislative day this strange committee called JACQA, which exists in order to enable the Secretary of State to decide whether he will fund particular qualifications. I want to discuss it in relation to the next group of amendments because of the power which that gives to the Secretary of State—quite rightly as he is the keeper of the purse—over the whole business of which qualifications shall be taught in English state schools. As a result of the economics of the whole process, he has a strong voice in what is in those qualifications. If the Secretary of State does not like a particular qualification, he can, as he did recently, say, "No, we’re not going to fund this". Even though the qualification has been passed by Ofqual and is in every other way eligible, he can say, "No, we don’t want to give money to that". That is fair enough: it is the Secretary of State’s job and it is what the Secretary of State is for. It seems to me an enormously important consideration when we come to Clause 138, because it gives the Secretary of State all the control he can possibly need over the content of qualifications and how they are delivered. It gives him no specific powers, but it gives him the ultimate veto, which effectively will give him all the control that a Secretary of State could ever have, need or want. I beg to move.