Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, this group of amendments responds mainly to concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, in particular, and by others around the Chamber in Committee. We on these Benches object to the Young People’s Learning Agency on a more fundamental level, as we have said before. We are concerned that by devolving responsibility for education of 16 to 19 year-olds to local authorities, headed by the YPLA, we are in danger of creating a confusing, bureaucratic and ultimately non-functional system of education. The lines of reporting, responsibility and funding appear to us to be tangled in such a way as to ensure that no one will be quite sure what they are or how they work. I very much fear that the nature of what my noble friend Lord Baker called a Byzantine structure will make it very difficult for the Government to put into practise the good intentions that I have no doubt they are trying to achieve. The Minister will doubtless assure us that this will not be the case. However, some concerns remain around the House. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, has tabled her Amendment 75 in a quest for clarity. I hope that the Minister will be able to give a response that will satisfy her. The amendments that the Government have tabled in response to concerns expressed about the YPLA do not answer our concerns about this structure and do not provide sufficient clarity to reassure us that this will function in a way that will implement the objectives effectively. Furthermore, the amendments do not address the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lord Eccles in Committee. How, for example, will the YPLA be expected to interact and work with the SFA, when they have such very differently constitutional bases? The SFA, as an agency, will be under the aegis of the Secretary of State. The YPLA, as an NDPB, will be supposedly independent. The Minister has not yet addressed these concerns sufficiently well and I hope that he will elaborate further. The bodies are very differently constituted, but we are constantly being told that they will find it easy to share information, to share back-office staff and functions and to provide an easy pathway for those under 19 who are involved in education to progress to adult education. I am looking to the Minister for further explanation. Specifically, in this instance, we express our opposition to government Amendments 71 and 72. These would allow the YPLA the power to appoint its own chief executive, albeit subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. If the YPLA is to exist, it should be held to account in the same way that the SFA as an agency should be held to account. The principle of democratic accountability must hold fast here. Noble Lords will be aware that we are of the opinion that this structure, as it is, will not work. In an ideal world, we would want to start from the very beginning to reformulate the Bill in an entirely different way. However, we recognise that we are nearing the end of its passage through your Lordships’ House and, instead, the power of revision, rather than fundamental restructuring, must be the path. Indeed, the Government have already started to dismantle the Learning and Skills Council and have created their shadow YPLA and SFA structures. We must, therefore, work with what we have in the Bill, as unsatisfactory as much of it might be. For this reason it is appropriate to oppose the power of the YPLA to separate itself from the Secretary of State by appointing its own chairman, even with the Secretary of State’s approval.