Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I very much support Amendments 273A and 273B. At the moment, we have something of an examinations apartheid between state and independent schools, which seems to me quite wrong. Independent schools are now experimenting with the IGCSE and with the Pre-U and, so far, the results seem very promising. They are enjoyed by the young people, the young people are challenged by them and the brighter children certainly seem to thrive better with those examinations than with those on offer in the state sector. Of course it was right in the early days to restrict the spread of new examinations, but now that they are much better established in the independent sector it would make sense for the Government to extend them in the state sector as well.