Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I support all the amendments that have been spoken to. My noble friend Lord Ramsbotham has put his finger on what he calls the "what factor". There is a tremendous difficulty in working out who is going to take responsibility when there are two Secretaries of State, plus the Ministry of Justice. Equally, the Minister has done a great job in communicating all the changes which she is trying to make to accommodate us. I also have a little sympathy with the Minister; there has been some point in trying to move the responsibility for education from the governors when, let us be honest, by no means every governor has been keen to see that the educational needs of young people in their care and custody are the first priority. Work arrangements and other priorities of governors have sometimes taken first place. I also have a sneaky feeling that, on the odd occasion, it might have been a good idea, as far as local education authorities were concerned, to see their more troublesome members paid for by another department, therefore reducing the burden of finding places and proper education for their most difficult customers. That said, I hope that the Minister can be more specific about just how far the Government are prepared to go to meet the concerns that have been expressed in these amendments, all of which I strongly support, or that we will be testing the opinion of the House on at least some of them.