Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I agree absolutely with the sentiments expressed in Committee and reflected in the amendments in this group tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Sharp and Lady Garden, to whom we are indebted. Employers must be consulted at all levels. I will take the opportunity, in moving the amendment and speaking to the others in the group, to set out precisely how that will happen. The most obvious place in which it is essential to engage employers is in the area of apprenticeships. In view of the overwhelming importance of the issue, noble Lords expressed a particular concern in Committee that employers and sector skills councils should be consulted on the specification of apprenticeship standards for England. Amendments 15 and 16 make it explicit that representatives of employers, further education colleges and other training providers must be consulted. While it has not been possible to refer directly to sector skills councils, I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, will accept that the formulation used encompasses sector skills councils and those sector bodies which issue frameworks. On Amendments 90 and 91, we will expect the National Apprenticeship Service and the Skills Funding Agency, of which it forms part, to work closely with sector skills councils and other sector bodies to encourage participation in apprenticeships so that young people can have the widest range of apprenticeship opportunities possible. It will also be essential to consult employers across a far wider range of issues than apprenticeships. Amendment 91 would require sector skills councils to consult themselves, which I am sure was not the intention of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. Clause 117 requires the chief executive of skills funding, in performing the functions of the office, to have regard to any guidance given by the Secretary of State. Subsection (2) makes it clear that this may include guidance about consultation, and there is a specific peg in subsection (3)(b) to include guidance with employers. I would like to place on the record a clear commitment that we will use that guidance-making power to require consultation by the Skills Funding Agency and, by extension, the National Apprenticeship Service with employers, their representatives and the sector skills councils. Noble Lords will be interested to know that draft guidance is currently being prepared for consultation. This gives an indicative list of the organisations which includes these bodies. We are also committed to using the Secretary of State’s mirror guidance-making power in Clause 76 to require the Young People’s Learning Agency to consult employers, their representative organisations, sector skills councils and other partners. Finally, we have reflected further on the strength of feeling with the House that in delivering their new responsibilities for 16 to 19 education and training, local authorities should engage closely with employers. We agree, and we accept that there was a gap in the Bill, which Amendment 81 seeks to address by extending the remit of the YPLA’s statutory guidance to include, most importantly, the local authority’s duty in Clause 42 to encourage employers to participate in education and training. This will mean that the YPLA can make it clear in its statutory guidance, to which local authorities must have regard, that they should consult local employers and their representative, where appropriate, in the exercise of their new duties. I hope that, taken together, these amendments and commitments will mean that there is proper engagement with employers at every level right across the activities of the Skills Funding Agency, the National Apprenticeship Service, the YPLA, and local authorities. I hope, therefore, that the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, will feel able to withdraw her amendments, which by and large deal with consultation in narrower areas of work. I beg to move.