Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, it may be worth trying to assess the reality of the independence of the QCDA. It is to be a non-departmental public body. It was clearly stated in 1997, which is now getting to be quite a long time ago, that non-departmental public bodies were to be, to varying degrees, at arm’s length from Ministers. However, the Explanatory Notes to the Bill state that the QCDA will report to Ministers. They do not say that it will report to Parliament, so the Select Committee procedure will be completely ignored. I can assure noble Lords that if you are in a non-departmental public body and you have some responsibility, the thing that worries you is not that you might be summoned to see the Minister, but that you might be called to appear in front of the Select Committee. Ignoring the Select Committees gives the game away as to what the accountability of the QCDA is intended to be. An NDPB has a structure, with a chairman and a board, and is almost always said to be "independent", and, indeed, we may be given some indication of the degree of independence which the Government think the QCDA will have. In the Oxford English Dictionary, "independent" means "free from the control of". In my study of independence, I have always taken Jane Austen quite seriously. She had a clear idea of what "independent" meant and she spelt it out on more than one occasion; it was usually a desirable feature of a bachelor. However, the question becomes: at what point does the degree of control over a body mean that you cannot any longer say that it is independent? There must then come a point where the independence is either illusory or so eroded that the game is not worth the candle, and why should anyone of real quality and experience want to be the chairman—or, indeed, a member—of such a body? This is the position of the QCDA. The Bill ties it down to a much greater degree than was the QCA tied down in the 1997 Act. The word "must" has crept into its relationship with the Secretary of State with an unprecedented Hegelian frequency, and directions are more frequent and less specific; previously confined to parts of the Act, they are now of general application. There seem to be two reasons for this creeping erosion of independence, this centralising of control by the executive, which is recognised in the Explanatory Notes where they refer to being accountable to Ministers but not to Parliament. The first reason for the erosion is that one driving force of the third way is the secular certainty that centralised executive power in the hands of Secretaries of State is the way forward. We may—as, indeed, the Liberal Democrat Benches do—object to that, but if it is there it has to be recognised; it is no good wishing that it was not. The second reason is ministerial frustration. As policies seem not to be working—as when the decision is reached that the Learning and Skills Council needs to be abolished—so it follows that the rules governing its successor bodies must be more mandatory; Ministers need them to be so. Thus the screw turns: now we see the possibility of independence; now we do not. Logically, if independence is an illusion—and that is revealed—and the reality is tight control by the Secretary of State leaving no room to manoeuvre, then why have a non-departmental public body? Why devalue the institution in that way? Would it not be more sensible to make the whole exercise the clear responsibility of the Secretary of State, as has been argued by my noble friends? In that way, if Parliament goes about its business properly, parliamentary accountability will be restored. The functions of the QCDA would be better discharged and accounted for if they were in the hands of the Secretary of State.