Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, in moving Amendment 269B I shall speak to the amendments grouped with it. The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, reminded us that before the national curriculum was introduced in 1988, there was no such thing and that examinations were set by the special assessment boards. They, incidentally, were largely influenced by universities. Indeed, going back a little further in history to the post-war period, one reason that education within the German state was given to the Länder state organisations was because we had poured scorn on the degree to which political influence had set the national curriculum in states such as the Nazi and, for that matter, the Soviet state. The great danger of politicising the national curriculum is there; we say, carefully, that the Secretary of State has to be the one who decides, yet there are virtues in going back to the situation where the universities set the curriculum. Indeed, I believe that, in the other place, the honourable gentleman Mr Willetts has even suggested that that might be quite a good idea. From these Benches, our notion is close to that which the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, talked about on the early days of the national curriculum. We see there being some advantage in having what we call a minimum curriculum offering, because during the 1970s and 1980s there was certainly a time when schools were doing very different things, and it was quite a good idea to be able to pull it together nationally. If there is to be some form of minimum curriculum offering, and decisions on what that offering shall be reside with the Secretary of State, it seems appropriate to us—and here I come back to what the Minister was saying—that within the department, if the Minister is to take those decisions it is surely better that those who advise him are people with some professional competence in education rather than his civil servants, whose competence is in policy and strategy, not in the professional area. If the Secretary of State is to have responsibility it therefore seems appropriate, in a way, to have some advisory body, which should on the whole comprehend the professionals rather than just being civil servants. This group of amendments is, therefore, about who should be on the board of the QCDA. We believe that, in order to carry out its functions properly, the QCDA needs to be able to call on the expertise of people on the board with knowledge and experience in the areas of education and training with which it will largely be dealing. It is vital that it does not consist of just industrialists and accountants but some real, down-to-earth educationalists who know what is going on and are up to speed on the latest thinking. First, we think that the proposed board is rather too small to contain that expertise, so with Amendment 269B we want to increase its minimum size from eight to 12 and its maximum size from 13 to 15, which is not a substantial increase in size but a slight one. Amendment 269C is in fact taken straight from the Education Act 1997 and the terms of reference for the QCA, so that those who constitute the board shall be persons with experience, first, in education, as in sub-paragraph (a) of that amendment, secondly, in training or, thirdly, in the "industrial, commercial, or financial" world. However, we have added a requirement for two-thirds of the membership to have experience in all the areas of education covered by the QCDA. Amendment 272 would require that the QCDA take account of the expertise and practical knowledge of the awarding bodies. These bodies are eager to work with the QCDA, as well as with Ofqual, and I am sure that both organisations would benefit from listening to their considerable store of knowledge. Amendment 273 would remove Clause 171(2), to stop the Secretary of State from meddling by preventing the QCDA from working on a particular qualification, even if it thinks it necessary. Amendment 275 to Clause 184 would bring the academies into the local family of schools by ensuring that children there have the same entitlement to the national curriculum. As the Committee may know, academies may currently move outside the national curriculum. Under Liberal Democrat policy, all schools would have more autonomy over the whole curriculum, but all children would receive a minimum curriculum entitlement. I beg to move.