Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

It will come as no surprise to the Minister that the main focus of our objection to the QCDA is that it is yet another body within this deeply quango-centric Bill, during the course of which we have consistently argued for a change in the Government’s approach. Rather than the quango-filled, bureaucratic tangle we have before us, we would prefer a streamlined, simple and clear-cut structure, which would be transparent and accountable. Within such a framework we would hope to remove the need for the QCDA altogether and thus cut down on yet another agency. As the Bill stands, the QCDA is responsible for the QCA's non-regulatory functions. According to the Explanatory Notes it is designed to support, ""Ministers on developing the curriculum and related qualifications and delivering National Curriculum assessments"." It is understandable that the Government, when they removed the regulatory functions from the QCA, thought that it would be only natural to form another agency out of the remaining functions. Nevertheless, this approach is symptomatic of a government whose first thought is bureaucracy over simplicity. We would move the functions of the QCA in relation to the national curriculum back to the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which would achieve two goals. First, Ministers who are responsible for making promises with regard to the curriculum could be held accountable for these promises. Secondly, it would carve at least one quango from this Bill and take one step towards reducing the bureaucracy that this Government have introduced. At this year’s Conservative Party conference, my honourable friend Michael Gove said: ""We need to take education out of the hands of these unaccountable quangocrats"," and so cut the waste out of the system. We on these Benches feel that removing the QCDA is an important part of these reforms. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s claims that in order to have Ofqual we must, therefore, have the QCDA. We do not believe that this is the case and it is perhaps telling that this is the solution the Government have come up with—another issue, another quango. I am fully aware that it is doubtful whether the noble Baroness will agree with our assessment of this clause and indeed this part of the Bill, but I was interested to note that Cambridge Assessment has been in touch with its legal advisers and has concluded that it would be perfectly possible to dissolve the QCA and hand its functions over to the Secretary of State. In other words, this is not a wrecking amendment. It is perfectly possible to pass a Bill that includes Ofqual but excludes the QCDA, so I hope that the Minister will consider removing this quango from the Bill. I look forward to her response.