Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I shall focus on the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. They preclude the chief executive of the FSA allowing a regional development agency to be the body that is awarded powers to, ""put in place and keep under review a strategy for how education and training for those persons that the Chief Executive is responsible for, will be delivered"." Noble Lords will be aware that we favour a sectoral, rather than regional, approach where the aim is to create a demand-led method of adult skills funding. We favour the role of the sector skills councils, not the regional development agencies, so we are deeply dissatisfied with the approach that has been taken in this legislation. It is difficult to believe—the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, referred to this—that over the summer such a dramatic change in policy could take place without due consideration for the process of scrutiny that was occurring in your Lordships’ House. I share the frustration of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on this. It appears that the Government think that no amendments are required to the legislation, but does the Minister acknowledge that such a change in approach impacts materially and substantially on the operation and implementation of the proposals in the Bill? There should be proper time for assessment and analysis of this new approach. In Committee, the Minister attempted to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, by saying: ""Local authorities will also play a key role in the development and agreement of skills strategies at a regional level"." He also tried to mollify my colleagues on these Benches, stating: ""In developing its skills strategy the RDA will be required to take account of the national priorities identified by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills and sector skills councils"." He went on to say that the Government, ""are not ignoring the vital role of sector skills councils—as well as the skill requirements of local areas and any sub-regional multi-area agreement partnerships or employment and skills boards".—[Official Report, 15/10/09; cols. 330-31.]" Nevertheless, that is hardly reassuring when taken in context with the fact that, we are told: ""Under this scenario, RDAs would be assigned the lead role in identifying, as part of their wider responsibilities for regional economic development, demand-side needs for skills in their regions. Those needs will be expressed in a regional skills strategy, led by the RDA, which will constitute an investment plan which would become binding on the SFA"." We are very concerned that this is an entirely different approach and an entirely new policy direction—one with which we are very unhappy. The job of the chief executive of the SFA, with all the different interest groups, has all the hallmarks of being almost impossibly complicated and frustrating. We favour a sectoral approach and are concerned that the Government’s new position will undermine that, even with the stated reassurances that the RDAs must take account of the views of UKCES, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, referred.